Mubarak release this week: lawyer

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, ousted during mass demonstrations in 2011, may be released from jail this week, reports say. The news comes amid violent clashes between the military and Muslim Brotherhood supporters that have left about a thousand people dead in less than a week.

A court ordered on Monday that the 85-year-old Mubarak be released this week, an unnamed judiciary official told The Associated Press.  

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," Deeb said. "He should be freed by the end of the week."

Mubarak was facing a corruption charge that alleged he and his two sons embezzled funds for presidential palaces. He has been ordered released in two other court 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' killing but cannot be held in custody anymore because of a two-year limit pending a final verdict.

He is also facing trial for allegedly accepting gifts from state newspapers, but has already repaid their value.

At least 840 people were killed and more than 6,000 injured in Mubarak's crackdown on the 18 days of protests that forced the three-decade strong man to step down on February 11, 2011, according to to Amnesty International, which cited official figures.

"The security forces used lethal and other excessive force against demonstrators before the fall of Hosni Mubarak," said an Amnesty International report immediately following the protests.

In June, Egyptian and international media reported that Mubarak -- currently being held at Tora prison in southern Cairo -- had suffered a cardiac arrest and slipped into a coma.

It was not immediately clear how Mubarak's release would affect ongoing tensions between Egyptian security forces and supporters of Mohamed Morsi, who was ousted by the military on July 3.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which backed Morsi, was supressed under Mubarak's rule.

Nearly 1,000 people have been killed in clashes between security forces and Morsi-supporters since an attack Wednesday killed over 600 people.

Militants ambushed two police mini-buses Monday, killing 25, a day after 36 Morsi supporters were killed in police custody.

When Mubarak stepped down from office in 2011, the former military commander handed power over to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the nation's interim military leadership commonly referred to as SCAF.

In the months that followed, SCAF leaders cracked down on protestors who continued to push for democratic reforms.

Mubarak's widely publicized trials on a number of charges ranging from corruption to the bloody crackdowns in the 2011 started on August 3, 2011.

Al Jazeera and wire services