Hosni Mubarak freed in case, held on other charge
Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak has been granted conditional release in one of the corruption cases against him, but will remain in custody on charges in an additional case, judicial sources said on Monday.
His lawyer plans to appeal against the fourth and final case, which is also related to corruption, in a bid to secure the former president's release, according to a judicial source.
Farid Al Dib, Mubarak's lawyer, is expected to argue that his client paid back the $600,120 (449,570 euros) worth of gifts he received from his minister of information -- the issue at the heart of the fourth case.
Since April, courts have ordered Mubarak's conditional release in two of the four cases against him -- one involving corruption, and a second for allegedly killing protesters.
On Monday, he was granted conditional release in a third case, and will now seek to be cleared of charges in the fourth, the judicial sources said.
The former president, 85, is on trial with his former interior minister Habib Adly and six police commanders on charges related to their rule before the 2011 uprising that toppled his regime.
On Saturday, a court adjourned his trial on charges of killing protesters until August 25 in a brief session that Mubarak did not attend.
He is facing the charges for a second time after a first trial that ended in him being sentenced to life was overturned by an appeals court on the basis of procedural errors.
Earlier report:
Hosni Mubarak, the former Egyptian president overthrown in an uprising in 2011, will be released from jail soon after a prosecutor cleared him in a corruption case, his lawyer and a judicial source said on Monday.
Mubarak, 85, was arrested after he was ousted. In scenes that mesmerised Arabs, the former leader appeared in a court-room cage during his trial on charges that ranged from corruption to complicity in the murder of protesters.
More than a year on, the only legal grounds for Mubarak's continued detention rest on another corruption case which his lawyer, Fareed el-Deeb, said would be settled swiftly.
"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 told Reuters.
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 defence, 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 organisation that began in July.
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.
He faces an investigation into accusations stemming from his escape from prison during the anti-Mubarak revolt. These include murder and conspiring with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. Mursi has not been formally indicted.