International
The coup that resulted in the ouster and arrest of Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi on July 3 could have better consequences for former president Hosni Mubarak: The strongman ousted in January of 2011 may be released from jail this week, his lawyer said Monday. Speculation over Mubarak's fate comes amid clashes between security forces and anti-coup protesters and coincided with an ambush in Sinai that left 25 policemen dead.
Mubarak's lawyer, Fareed el-Deeb, told Reuters that Mubarak will be released within the next two days.
"All we have left is a simple administrative procedure that should take no more than 48 hours," el-Deeb said. "He should be freed by the end of the week."
Although judiciary officials told The Associated Press there were no longer any grounds to detain the 85-year-old former autocrat on one set of charges because of a two-year legal limit on holding an individual in custody pending a final verdict, his immediate fate remained a matter of speculation.
The news on Mubarak's legal status came hours after security forces said gunmen had ambushed two mini-buses carrying off-duty policemen in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, forcing the men out onto the pavement and executing 25 of them. The brazen daylight attack deepened the turmoil roiling the country and underscored the volatility of the strategic region.
The killings, which took place near the border town of Rafah in northern Sinai, came a day after 36 detainees were killed north of Cairo as they were being transported to a prison — an incident for which there have been differing accounts.
The State Department said Monday that U.S. officials were deeply troubled by the Morsi supporters' "suspicious" deaths.
Also, the State Department advised against a proposal by Egyptian interim Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi that the government ban the Muslim Brotherhood, which backed Morsi.
A few hours after the attack near Rafah, gunmen shot to death a police major as he stood guard outside a bank in the city of el-Arish, also in northern Sinai, security officials said.
Mubarak has been in detention since April 2011. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in June last year for his failure to stop the killing of some 900 protesters in the 18-day uprising against his rule. That sentence was overturned on appeal, and the case is being retried.
Mubarak's trial on Monday addressed a charge that he and his two sons embezzled funds for presidential palaces. He has been ordered released in two other cases against him — one involving the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising and another involving alleged illegal earnings. He is on retrial for the protesters' deaths but cannot be held in custody anymore because of the two-year limit.
He is also facing trial for allegedly accepting gifts from state newspapers but has repaid their value.
In June, Egyptian and international media reported that Mubarak, who is being held at Tora prison in southern Cairo, had suffered a cardiac arrest and slipped into a coma.
TIMELINE: Attacks in Sinai since 2011
Tensions in Egypt have soared since the army ousted Morsi in a July 3 coup after days of massive protests demanding his resignation. But Morsi's supporters have fought back, staging demonstrations demanding that he be reinstated and denouncing the military coup.
It was not immediately clear how Mubarak's release would affect tensions between Egyptian security forces and Morsi supporters.
The Muslim Brotherhood was suppressed under Mubarak's rule.
Nearly 1,000 people have been killed in clashes between security forces and Morsi supporters since the military moved to dismantle two demonstration camps by anti-coup protesters on Wednesday.
On Monday, Egyptian security forces mistakenly killed the bureau chief of a provincial office of state newspaper Al-Ahram after opening fire on a car they thought had tried to escape from a checkpoint enforcing a dusk-to-dawn curfew, security sources said. Journalists are exempt from the curfew, which is set to last for one month.
When Mubarak stepped down from office in 2011, the former military commander handed power to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the nation's interim military leadership commonly referred to as the SCAF.
In the months that followed, SCAF leaders cracked down on protesters who continued to push for democratic reforms.
Al Jazeera and wire services
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