Court Dismisses Murder Charges Against Mubarak

An Egyptian court has thrown out a case against former President Hosni Mubarak for conspiring to murder protesters during the 2011 Egyptian revolution due to a technicality and lack of jurisdiction.

Mubarak and his sons Alaa and Gamal were also cleared by Chief Judge Mahmoud Kamel al-Rashidi of corruption charges related to exporting gas to Israel.

The same Cairo court acquitted Habib al-Adli, former Mubarak-era interior minister, and six senior security commanders of conspiracy to murder protesters.

Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said the trial was highly politicised and the verdict was “stunning”.

“I am speechless,” he said. “Because the judge has told us not to discuss his verdict until we have examined the 1,430 page document.”

“This is an arrogant attempt to make the Egyptian people feel sorry for coming out to the streets,” he added.

“This is trying to retrieve the old Egypt and basically clear three decades of dictatorship. Basically we have everyone that has been in charge of the violence and corruption cleared of all charges, while in prison we have thousands of peaceful civil rights activists.”

Mubarak, 86, had been accused along with the former police commanders of involvement in the killing of 846 demonstrators during the 2011 revolt that ended his three-decade rule. Only 239 of the deaths were considered by the court, the presiding judge said.

An appeals court had overturned an initial life sentence for Mubarak in 2012 on a technicality.

The new verdict was initially scheduled for September 27, but Judge Rashidi postponed it, saying he had not finished writing the reasoning after a retrial that saw thousands of case files presented.