Hosni Mubarak gets life sentence

A judge sentenced former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to life in prison on Saturday after convicting him of involvement in the murder of protesters during the uprising that ousted him last year.
A senior lawyer for Mubarak’s defence team told AFP the strongman, who was taken to a Cairo prison after the hearing, will appeal the sentence.
Also given a life term for the killings was the 84-year-old former strongman’s interior minister Habib al-Adly, but six ex-police commanders were acquitted. Corruption charges against Mubarak’s sons, Alaa and Gamal, were dropped due to the expiry of a statute of limitations, and the former president was acquitted in one of the graft cases. Scuffles erupted soon after the verdicts were delivered and chants of “Void, void” and “The people want the judiciary purged” could be heard, as furious lawyers told AFP they feared Mubarak would be found innocent on appeal. “We will appeal. The ruling is full of legal flaws from every angle,” Yasser Bahr, a senior member of Mubarak’s defence team, told AFP.
Asked if Mubarak was likely to win the appeal, Bahr said, “We will win, one million percent.” Mubarak, who wore dark sunglasses and a beige track-suit, had his arms folded and showed no emotion inside his caged dock, as Chief Judge Ahmed Refaat read out the verdict. His two sons, Alaa and Gamal, looking tired with dark circles under their eyes, appeared close to tears on hearing the verdict.
“It’s vindicating to Egyptians to see Mubarak and his interior minister sentenced to life, but the verdict raises more questions than answers,” said Hossam Bahgat, the director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, who was outside the court with members of the victims’ families. “The court appears to have found no evidence that the killings were committed by policemen. It seems the court convicted Mubarak and Adly for failing to prevent the killings,” Bahgat told AFP. “It’s 100 percent certain that this will go to appeal and the court is very likely to order a retrial,” said Bahgat, a respected activist and lawyer. In delivering the ruling, Judge Refaat painted a grim picture of life under Mubarak, listing hardship after hardship suffered during his three decade rule. He said some “went hungry” and spoke of conditions in the “rotting slums”.
Refaat said the protesters who had participated in the 2011 uprising in Cairo’s Tahrir Square were “peaceful” and only wanted “justice, freedom and democracy”.