Mubarak’s retrial postponed

Cairo: Egypt’s top appeals court on Thursday postponed until November 3 the retrial of former president Husni Mubarak on charges related to protester killings after he had not appeared at the court.

The postponement is the third of its kind since the Court of Cassation started to hear the long-standing case last November.

At the start of Thursday’s session, the chief judge Ahmad Abdul Qawai said he had received a letter from security authorities saying that Mubarak had not been brought to the court building in central Cairo due to “his health condition”. The 87-year-old former president is suffering from age-related problems.

The court said that the postponement was aimed at allowing authorities time to bring Mubarak to the court or provide a high security venue for the retrial.

Mubarak had not attended the previous two hearings.

His showing is mandatory for any verdict that will be final, according to legal experts.

Mubarak was forced to resign following a 2011 uprising. He has since stayed mostly at an army hospital in the southern Cairo quarter of Maadi.

On Thursday, his loyalists packed the courthouse since the early hours of the day, carrying his portrait.

They also torched a placard reading ‘The January 25 setback’ — a reference to the 2011 revolt.

Hundreds of protesters were killed in the uprising.

The case, locally known as the “Trial of the Century” opened in August 2011 amid media hype in Egypt and the Arab world.

In June 2013, a criminal court convicted Mubarak and his interior minister Habib Al Adly of failing to prevent the killing of protesters and sentenced both to life imprisonment. The sentences were later revoked on appeal.

In November 2014, another court dismissed the criminal charges against Mubarak and acquitted Al Adly, a verdict that angered Mubarak’s opponents.

In June last year, the Court of Cassation ordered a retrial for Mubarak after granting an appeal from the country’s chief prosecutor against the dismissal of the charges.