Hosni Mubarak, the former Egyptian dictator whose overthrow came to symbolise the promise of the Arab spring, has been cleared of conspiring in the murder of hundreds of protesters who called for his removal in 2011.
A Cairo court ruled on Saturday that it did not have jurisdiction over what it judged to be politically-motivated charges and dismissed the case. Mubarak, 86, was also acquitted of several other corruption charges.
Several senior Mubarak-era police officials were acquitted at same time, as were Mubarak’s two sons, Gamal and Alaa.
“It was not suitable to try him of crimes according to the penal code,” the presiding judge, Mahmoud Rashidi said as he threw out the murder case.
The judgement overturns the life sentence Mubarak received in June 2012, and means he will face no punishment for allegedly sanctioning the murder of 846 protesters during Egypt’s 2011 uprising or for allegedly profiting from the export of gas at below-market rates.
For Egypt’s revolutionaries, the decision is the apogee of a counter-revolution overseen by the country’s new president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, who was head of military intelligence under Mubarak.
For many others, Mubarak’s fate has become less significant, with millions either exhausted by the four years of political turmoil that his removal unleashed, or far angrier at his one-time successor, the ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, whom Sisi unseated in July 2013.
The ruling leaves Mubarak convicted of just one crime during his three decades in power. He was found guilty in May on separate charges of misusing public funds, though may be released soon.
