Egypt court delays decision on Mubarak trial appeal

An Egyptian court has postponed a decision on an appeal against a lower court’s ruling that dropped murder charges against ousted dictator, Hosni Mubarak.

On Thursday, an unidentified official from the Court of Cassation told reporters that the decision on the prosecution appeal will be announced on June 4.

According to legal experts, the court could either reject the appeal or order a retrial for the toppled president, who is being held at a military hospital in Egypt’s capital city of Cairo.

In November 2014, a lower court dismissed murder charges against Mubarak over the deaths of some of the roughly 800 demonstrators during the 2011 uprising that ended his decades-long rule.

In December last year, prosecutors filed an appeal against the controversial verdict.

The deposed Egyptian dictator is being retried along with his two sons in a separate case on corruption charges.

Egypt’s 2011 revolution led to the overthrow of Mubarak. In an election after Mubarak’s ouster, Muslim Brotherhood-backed Mohamed Morsi was elected president.

Morsi was later ousted in a military coup led by former military chief and current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in July 2013.

The Egyptian government has been cracking down on any opposition since Morsi was ousted, and Sisi has been accused of leading the suppression of Morsi’s supporters, as hundreds of them have been killed in clashes with Egyptian security forces.