Hosni Mubarak gets life in prison, sons acquitted

AP In this video image taken from Egyptian State Television, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is seen in the defendant's cage as a judge reads the verdict against him, in Cairo on Saturday.

AP In this video image taken from Egyptian State Television, former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is seen in the defendant's cage in a Cairo court on Saturday.

AP Ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. File photo

An Egyptian court on Saturday has sentenced former strongman Hosni Mubarak to a life in prison for his complicity in the killing of protesters, following a ten-month trial that was riven with loopholes and marred by controversy.

Judge Ahmed Rifat observed that the prosecution could not muster any evidence to establish that Mr. Mubarak had directly ordered the killings of protesters, 850 of whom had died during the 18-day anti-Mubarak uprising last year. Nevertheless, the Judge held Mr. Mubarak responsible for the deaths because of his lack of intervention to stop the killings.

Habib el-Adly, the interior minister of the day under Mr. Mubarak was also served a life sentence for the same reason. As the verdict was announced, there was a spontaneous eruption of joy among the several families of the dead who had assembled outside the court room. But the mood swiftly darkened as the news filtered out that Mr. Mubarak's two sons, Alaa and Gamal, had been acquitted of one major set of corruption charges. They would now stand trial on charges of manipulating the stock market that were levelled against them last week.

Tempers flew when the Judge announced the acquittal of the six top police officers, who were in charge when the killings took place. Feeding into the fury was the perception that Mr. Mubarak maybe freed or awarded a lighter sentence by an appeals court. Mr. Mubarak's lawyers reinforced the view that their client was likely to be acquitted following an appeal. AFP quoted Yasser Bahr, a senior member of Mr. Mubarak's team as saying: "We will appeal. The ruling is full of legal flaws from every angle."

By afternoon angry crowds, rejecting the verdict, were pouring into Tahrir square-the ground zero of the Egyptian uprising. A similar outpouring was reported from Alexandria, Egypt's second largest city and Suez. Fears of a counterrevolution triggered by Saturday's verdict are likely to brighten the chances of the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mr. Mohamed Morsy whose bid for the Presidency is being challenged by the Mubarak-era Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq during a June 16-17 runoff.

Source: The Hindu