Change: Mubarak to be freed in next 48 hours - UPDATED
Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is to be released within the next 48 hours according to a report from Reuters in Israel Hayom.Hosni Mubarak, the former Egyptian president overthrown in an uprising in 2011, will be released from jail in the next 48 hours after a prosecutor cleared him in a corruption case, his lawyer, Fareed El-Deeb, told Reuters on Monday.
He was speaking after judicial authorities ordered Mubarak released in one of the remaining corruption cases against him.
The only legal grounds for Mubarak's continued detention rest on another corruption case which will be cleared up later this week, Deeb said.
In June 2012, Mubarak was sentenced to life imprisonment by an Egyptian court for failing to prevent the killing of more than 900 protesters during the 2011 uprising that forced him from power. In January 2013, the court ordered a retrial granting an appeal of the former autocrat’s life sentence.
"All we have left is a simple administrative procedure that should take no more than 48 hours. He should be freed by the end of the week," Deeb said.
Something tells me he won't get - or take - a call from Obama either.
Mubarak, 85, still faces a retrial on charges of complicity in the murder of protesters during the 2011 revolt.
UPDATE 4:13 PM
Reuters says it might actually take another two weeks (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
Without confirming that Mubarak would be freed, a judicial source said the former leader would spend another two weeks behind bars before judicial authorities made a final decision in the outstanding case against him.
Mubarak, along with his interior minister, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison last year for failing to stop the killing of protesters in the revolt that swept him from power.
He still faces a retrial in that case after appeals from the prosecution and defense, but this would not necessarily require him to stay in jail. Mubarak did not appear at a hearing in the case on Saturday. He was also absent from Monday's proceedings.
Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for 30 years, is being held at Tora prison on the southern outskirts of Cairo, the facility where senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood have been detained since they were arrested in a crackdown on the organization that began in July.
I sure hope Mubarak and the Brotherhood are nowhere near each other. At least Morsy is apparently someplace else. In any event, it does appear that Mubarak will be released from jail. If I were him, I would use the opportunity to move to another country.
The military removed President Mohamed Mursi, a senior Brotherhood official, on July 3 after mass protests against his rule. Mursi is in detention at an undisclosed location.
Labels: Egyptian Revolution, Hosni Mubarak, Mohammed Morsy, Muslim Brotherhood
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home