Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who was ousted by the military in 2011 during the Arab Spring has died in Cairo at the age of 91.
Mr. Mubarak had spent 3 decades in power before his government was toppled by a popular uprising that swept the country.
Initially Mr. Mubarak had been convicted with complicity in the killing of protesters during the revolution before that sentence was overturned and was set free in March 2017.
The Egyptian state news confirmed Mubarak’s death on Tuesday. The Al-Watan website reported earlier in the day that he had died at a military hospital. In January, he underwent surgery and was photographed with his grandson as he recovered.
Reports emerged on Saturday with his son Alaa saying that the former president remained in intensive care.
Who was Hosni Mubarak?
He was born in 1928 and joined the air force as a teenager. He went on to play a key role in the 1973 Arab-Israel war. He became president of Egypt following the assassination of former president Anwar Sadat. After taking power, he played a key role in the Israel-Palestine peace process.
During his tenure, Egypt was hit by unemployment, poverty, and corruption despite the billions of dollars in military aid the country received.
Growing discontent resulted into protests in January 2011 and as the case was in Tunisia where the president was overthrown, Mubarak was forced to step down after 18 days of intensive protests.
Following Mubarak’s overthrow, Mohamed Morsi, an Islamist politician, won Egypt’s first democratic presidential election. But Morsi also lasted less than a year in office as he was ousted in a military coup led by Gen Abdel Fattah al-Sisi amid mass protests.
Since then, Gen Sisi has gone on to win two presidential elections while Morsi died in prison in 2019.
The court in Egypt had sentenced Mubarak to life imprisonment in 2012 after being convicted with charges of causing deaths to some 900 protesters who were killed by his security forces during the 2011 uprising. Both Mubarak and his two sons were also convicted of corruption.
But all the charges against Mubarak were later overturned and he was set free in 2017.
