Egyptian court postpones Mubarak verdict to November 29

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is wheeled out of an ambulance outside the Maadi military hospital in Cairo on September 27, 2014 before boarding a helicopter that transported him to a court. AFP

An Egyptian court has postponed the verdict in the retrial of deposed president Hosni Mubarak on charges of corruption and killing of hundreds of protesters during the 2011 uprising that toppled him.

The 86-year-old was flown by helicopter to the court at a police academy on the outskirts of Cairo, after he was wheeled on a stretcher from a military hospital in the capital, an AFP correspondent and police said.

Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for three decades, is charged alongside seven of his security commanders with involvement in the deaths of hundreds of demonstrators during the 18-day uprising.

He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in the initial trial, but an appeals court overturned the verdict on a technicality.

The date for the verdict was set to November 29 for 86-year-old Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for three decades and seven of his former police commanders, as well as for his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, accused of corruption. 

In August, Mubarak told the court that he never ordered the killing of protesters.

"I, Mohammed Hosni Mubarak, who is standing before you today, never handed down orders for the killing of protesters. I never handed down orders for the killing of Egyptians," he said in his first speech to the court.

"I exhausted my life fighting against enemies of the homeland. I would never hand down orders for the killing of a single Egyptian citizen under any circumstances. Or hand down orders to wreak chaos of which I had been warning. I would never hand down orders to cause anarchy or a political vacuum."

Mubarak's sons were acquitted on corruption charges due to the expiry of a statute of limitations.

Mubarak's successor, Mohamed Morsi, was himself overthrown by the military and imprisoned along with thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters during a crackdown in June 2013.

Youth leaders who spearheaded the anti-Mubarak revolt have been jailed for staging unauthorised protests by then-army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who was elected as president in May this year.