Mubarak acquitted under new President Morsi after two revolutions in Egypt. After being ousted once then overthrown, then ousted again, Egypt is going back to its original roots.
CAIRO — An Egyptian court dismissed Saturday a murder charge against formerpresident Hosni Mubarak over the deaths of protesters during a 2011 uprising, after adramatic retrial in which he defended his three-decade rule.
“I did nothing wrong at all,” he said in a telephone interview with the private Sada El Balad
broadcaster from the military hospital where he is serving a three-year sentence for a separate
corruption case.
Mubarak praised his 30-year rule, which was marred by police abuses and corruption, especially
the decade before his overthrow.
Apparently referring to economic growth, he said: “The last 10 years showed more results than the
20 years before, including telephones and so on, and then they turned against us.”
The court also acquitted the ex-strongman of corruption charges related to gas exports to Israel,
but Mubarak will remain in detention to serve his three-year sentence.
Seven of his security commanders, including the feared former interior minister Habib al-Adly,
were also acquitted in connection with the deaths of some of the roughly 800 people killed during
the revolt.
Cheers broke out in the courtroom and Mubarak’s two sons and co-defendants stooped down to
kiss his forehead when the judge read out the verdict, as Mubarak, 86, lay in an upright stretcher
inside the caged dock.
But relatives of those killed in the uprising expressed dismay.
Corruption charges against the sons, Alaa and Gamal, were also dropped.
The usually stone-faced Mubarak, wearing his trademark shades, allowed himself a faint smile.
He was later transported back to a Cairo military hospital where he is serving his sentence,
appearing in a wheelchair from a balcony door to wave at supporters gathered at the gates.
His lawyer Farid al-Deeb told AFP that the verdict was “a good ruling that proved the integrity of
Mubarak’s era.”
An appeals court had overturned an initial life sentence for Mubarak in 2012 on a technicality.
Saturday’s verdict may also be appealed.
Many Egyptians increasingly look to the former autocrat’s stable era with nostalgia in light of the
turmoil that followed his overthrow.
His successor Mohamed Morsi, a leader of the main Islamist opposition group under Mubarak,
was toppled by the army himself in 2012 following massive protests.
Mubarak’s supporters leapt out of their benches in celebration when the judge pronounced the
verdict, chanting: “Say the truth, don’t be scared— Mubarak is innocent.”
The ruling came after a retrial lasting more than a year in which many witnesses, including
Mubarak’s former police and intelligence commanders, appeared to exonerate him in their
testimony.
Outside the court venue, a sprawling police academy on Cairo’s outskirts, relatives of those killed
in the revolt were appalled at the verdict.
“It’s an oppressive ruling. The blood of my son has been wasted,” said Mostafa Morsi, whose son
was killed outside a police station during the uprising.
In Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the hub of the anti-Mubarak revolt, passers-by were divided on the
outcome.
“Justice for the martyrs has been lost,” said one woman in her 50s.
Others disagreed. “There is no evidence against Mubarak. He was an honest president,” said
Mostafa Saed, a retired government worker.
Protesters at the time of the revolt vented years of pent-up fury over police abuses and corruption
by attacking and torching stations across the country, leaving the interior ministry on the brink of
collapse.
Chief judge Mahmud Kamel al-Rashidi, 63, suggested his ruling was made with a clear11/29/2014 Mubarakafter his acquittal: I did nothing wrong | The Times of Israel
http://www.timesofisrael.com/mubarak-responds-to-acquittal-i-did-nothing-wrong/ 3/3
conscience.
“God will ask me what did you do in this world, and specifically what did you do as a judge,” he told
the court before pronouncing his verdict and brandishing a thick copy of the reasoning behind his
decision.
He said he dropped the murder charge against Mubarak because the prosecution should not have
added him to the case they had initially made against his security chiefs.
During the 2011 uprising, hundreds of thousands of protesters rallied daily demanding Mubarak
immediately step down.
But once-banished Mubarak-era officials have since made a comeback, using a backlash against
former opposition figures blamed for the subsequent tumult.
The police force is now feted in the largely pro-government media as it wages a deadly crackdown
on pro-Morsi Islamist protesters and militants.
Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab was a senior official in Mubarak’s now-dissolved party. Mubarak’s
former military intelligence chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is now president, having won an election after
deposing Morsi last year.
Hundreds of members of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood movement have been sentenced since his
downfall.
Morsi himself is standing trial in several cases, including taking part in jail breaks and violence
during the anti-Mubarak revolt.
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