Cairo: Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was Thursday taken back to a prison near Cairo, reported the official Middle East News Agency, hours after a medical report said he is in good health.
He was moved through a side gate of an army hospital in the southern Cairo area of Maadi after a large crowd of his loyalists gathered outside the main gate of the facility, reported the agency, quoting an unnamed security official.
“His transfer process was delayed for some time because hundreds of his supporters gathered in front of the hospital until the early hours of the day and security forces did not want to clash with them,” the official added.
Mubarak, 84, was sent back to the hospital of the Torah Prison upon an order form Public Prosecutor Talaat Abdullah after a medical committee said that the former strongman is in good health and can be adequately treated in prison.
He is due to stand a new trial on May 11 on charges of complicity in the killing of hundreds of protesters during a revolt that eventually deposed him in February 2011.
Upon Mubarak’s arrival at the prison, he was carried into a hospital amid tight security, said the security official. His two sons, being detained in the same prison, tried to comfort him after he appeared upset for leaving the military hospital where he has stayed for the past four months, added the official.
A court Monday ordered Mubarak’s release after he had served the maximum temporary detention allowed under Egyptian law.
However,the public prosecutor ordered he be kept in custody pending questioning in two separate corruption cases.
In June, a court sentenced Mubarak to life in prison after convicting him of failing to stop protester deaths.]
In January, the country’s top appeal court revoked the verdict and ordered his retrial.
