CAIRO: An Egyptian court on Monday ordered the release of former president Hosni Mubarak pending trial on graft charges.
The 85-year-old Mubarak was arrested on April 12, 2011, two months after a popular uprising forced him from office. He was sentenced to life imprisonment last year for complicity in the killing of protesters during the uprising, but won a retrial in January.
The lawyer for Mubarak, Fareed El-Deeb, said that the former president will be released from jail in the next 48 hours.
El-Deeb said that prosecutors have dropped a corruption case against Mubarak. He said the only legal grounds for Mubarak’s continued detention rest on another corruption case which will be dropped later this week.
