A court granted Hosni Mubarak's appeal of his life sentence, ordering on Sunday a retrial of the ousted Egyptian president on charges that he failed to prevent the killing of protesters during the uprising that toppled his regime nearly two years ago, according to a report of the Associated Press. The ruling read out by judge Ahmed Ali Abdel-Rahman during the brief court session also overturned the conviction of Mubarak's security chief Habib El-Adly, who is also serving a life sentence after his conviction on the same charges. He too will be retried. Mubarak will not walk free, as he is being held for investigation on other charges. The defendants were not present in the courtroom. Abdel-Rahman also granted the prosecution's request to overturn not-guilty verdicts on Mubarak, his two sons and an associate of the former president, Hussein Salem, on corruption charges. Salem was tried in absentia and remains at large to this day. The judge also ordered the retrial of six of El-Adly's top aides who were acquitted in the same trial. Five of them were found not guilty of involvement in the killing of the protesters, while one was acquitted of "gross negligence." No date has been set for the start of the retrial of the 11 and it was not immediately clear if all of them would be brought before the same court as was the case in their first trial.
