Cairo: At least two persons were killed and ten others injured when police clashed with demonstrators protesting here to denounce dropping of murder charge against former ousted president Hosni Mubarak and his sons by an an Egyptian court.
Over 3,000 protesters took to the streets and gathered near iconic Tahrir Square on Saturday evening, after Mubarak was acquitted of a murder charge by a court which found him not guilty in the killing of hundreds of unarmed protesters during the 2011 revolution that toppled the former strongman’s nearly three decades-long regime.
Health Minister Adel el-Adawy on Sunday confirmed that two protesters died while ten others sustained injuries. The protesters held country’s flag and chanted slogans against the verdict.
Police closed Tahrir square to prevent protesters from entering and fired water cannons, teargas and birdshot to disperse the crowd, media outlets reported. In a dramatic reversal of fortune, Judge Mahmud Kamel al-Rashidi overturned the life sentence Mubarak received in June 2012, which means he will face no punishment for allegedly sanctioning the murder of 846 protesters during Egypt’s 2011 uprising or for allegedly profiting from the export of gas at below-market rates.
But in January 2013 the Court of Cassation upheld an appeal by his supporters against Mubarak’s convictions on technical grounds and ordered a retrial which began in April the same year.
The retrial was adjourned several times till the court gave an order on Saturday. Mubarak’s sons Alaa and Gamal are currently serving four-year prison terms for embezzlement of state funds.
A Cairo court in September had delayed the final verdict in Mubarak’s case, with the presiding judge saying that he had not finished reviewing evidence amounting to 160,000 pages for health reasons. (PTI)
