Egypt’s former President Hosni Mubarak returned home, yesterday, a freeman following his release from custody.
Mubarak who had been in detention since his ouster in 2011 was slammed with corruption and murder charges.
He left the Armed Forces hospital in Cairo’s southern suburb of Maadi earlier in the morning. From there, he went to his house in the upscale district of Heliopolis under heavy security measures.
Mubarak’s lawyer, Farid el-Deeb, told the Egyptian daily Al-Masry al-Youm that the ailing former president returned home with his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, and that the entire family, including Mubarak’s wife Suzanne came together at his house to celebrate his return and have breakfast together.
The 88-year-old Mubarak was acquitted by Egypt’s top appeals court on March 2 of charges that he ordered the killing of protesters during the 2011 popular uprising that led to his ouster.
At that point, he had already served a three-year sentence for embezzling state funds while in detention in connection with the case on the deaths of protesters. A criminal court had ruled in May 2015 to jail Mubarak for three years and fine him millions of Egyptian pounds following his conviction for embezzling funds earmarked for the maintenance and renovation of presidential palaces. The ruling was upheld by another court in January 2016.
Prosecutors, however, reopened another corruption case on Thursday, linked to allegations that Mubarak received gifts from the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper worth $1 million, along with his family members. The case was closed before the prosecutors appealed and the case restarted.