Cairo- The two sons of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak were released from prison on Monday, one day after no fewer than 15 people were killed in protests marking the anniversary of the 2011.
A prison official said that Gamal and Alaa Mubarak were freed after prosecutors certified that they needed not to be held over outstanding insider trading charges.
Mubarak and his sons in December won a retrial on charges of spending over 100 million Egyptian pounds (14 million dollars) of public money on their private residences.
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No steps have been taken to release the former president, who was acquitted in November of responsibility for the killing of demonstrators during the protests that erupted on Sunday.
News that they were due to be released, together with the deaths of two young women protesters as police broke up demonstrations ahead of the anniversary, increased a widespread sense of frustration among Egyptian youths and opposition activists.
Pictures of Saturday’s killing of socialist activist, Shaimaa al-Sabbagh in Cairo were widely shared on social media, and activists contrasted her fate with the release of Mubarak’s sons.
Al-Sabbagh’s Popular Socialist Alliance is due to meet with allied leftist and opposition parties to consider their response possibly including a boycott of March’s planned parliamentary elections.
It said that 12 civilians and a policeman were killed when police broke up a protest by the banned Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo’s Matariya district.
Another two people were reported killed in Brotherhood protests elsewhere, while small protests by secular activists in central Cairo were quickly dispersed by security forces.
Egyptian authorities have cracked down on dissent since Islamist President Mohammed Morsi was deposed by the military in mid-2013 after mass protests against his increasingly unpopular rule.
The authorities said that they were implementing a road map to restore democracy, pointing to the election of former army chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi to the presidency as well as the planned parliamentary polls. (dpa/NAN)