Mubarak released from prison, flown to hospital

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
was freed from prison on Thursday and
flown by helicopter to a military hospital in
Cairo a day after a court ordered the release
of the longtime strongman.
State-run news media said 85-year-old
Mubarak was flown from Cairo's Tora prison
Thursday afternoon aboard a medically
equipped helicopter and arrived at the
Maadi Military Hospital, where he will remain
at his request. Dozens of Mubarak's
supporters rallied outside the prison earlier
as they awaited his release from more than
two years in detention, the Associated Press
reported.
But the court's ruling to free Mubarak was
greeted mostly with indifference in the Arab
world's largest country -- the most stunning
sign yet of how outrage over Mubarak's
iron-fisted rule has faded since the Arab
Spring revolt that swept him from power.
Washington Post reports that Mubarak's
release, attributed to a legal technicality,
would have provoked mass outrage in the
months after Egypt's 2011 popular uprising.
But seven weeks after a military coup
ousted the country's first democratically
elected president, Mohamed Morsi, and put
an end to its brief experiment with Islamist
rule, some met the court decision with
nostalgia for Mubarak's order.
Hours after the court's ruling on Wednesday,
Egypt's military-backed interim government
invoked military law in ordering that
Mubarak be placed under house arrest after
his release.
The court decision came amid a resurgence
of the police state that Mubarak led for three
decades and an intensifying government
crackdown on his old foes in the Muslim
Brotherhood.
The ruling could further inflame supporters
of the Islamist opposition. About 1,000
civilians have been killed since security
forces broke up two pro-Morsi sit-ins in
Cairo last week.
The court ordered Mubarak's release after
the former president agreed to return or
pay the value of gifts he received from state
news organizations while in office, a
spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said.
The Egyptian prosecutor's office said
Mubarak's assets would remain frozen.
It was the only active case among the three
brought against him since his ouster.
Judicial authorities accepted Mubarak's
appeal for a retrial on separate charges of
corruption and killing protesters during the
Arab Spring uprising. Other charges related
to the renovation of the presidential palace
are pending but do not require his
detention because his family put up some
property as bond.
Under Egyptian law, suspects cannot be held
for more than two years without a
conviction, said Badr Abdellaty, a spokesman
for the Foreign Ministry. Mubarak has
reached the two-year limit, Abdellaty said.
"So he can stay at home," the spokesman
said. Mubarak is to return to court for his
remaining judicial proceedings.
The prosecutor's office, part of a judiciary
that critics have long accused of being
stacked with Mubarak allies, said that the
court's decision was final and could not be
appealed.
"The prosecution has no legal ground to
appeal the decision of his release, as
Mubarak paid the money he took, and has
no legal ground for his detention," said
Yassir Mohammad Sayyid Ahmad, a lawyer
who represents families of Egyptians killed
by Mubarak's security forces during the 18-
day uprising in 2011, which left more than
800 people dead.