Former Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak freed after 6 years in jail

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was freed on Friday after a six-year imprisonment following his overthrow during the Arab Spring in 2011.

Mubarak, 88 was released from a military hospital in Maadi and is now back at his home in a Cairo suburb, confirmed his lawyer.

Mubarak was acquitted earlier this month after Egypt’s top court cleared him over the deaths of protesters in the 2011 uprising that ousted him.

He became president in 1981 after Anwar Sadat’s assassination, and dominated the nation for three decades, before he was succeeded by democratically-elected Mohammed Morsi following the uprisings of the Arab Spring. 

His successor, Mohammed Morsi was later ousted by a military coup led by Egypt’s current President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.

Mubarak who went through a series of criminal trials after being forced from office was sentenced in 2012 to life in prison for complicity in the killings of protesters during the January 2011 revolt. 

Mubarak was tried again in 2014, but the court acquitted him and the co-defendants. And in 2015, judges ordered that he stand for trial a third time for the killings.

Mubarak who has been hospitalized for long periods with heart problems and stomach cancer since his ouster has sometimes appeared in court on a stretcher or in a wheelchair. He had been confined at Maadi Military Hospital for treatment since 2012.