Egypt’s ousted former president Hosni Mubarak has died at the age of 91, state television said on Tuesday, weeks after undergoing surgery.
Mubarak ruled Egypt for 30 years until he was ousted following mass protests against his rule in 2011, during the Arab spring. He was jailed for years after the uprising, but was freed in 2017 after being acquitted of most charges.
His democratically elected successor, Mohamed Morsi, was overthrown in a popularly backed military coup in 2013. Many see echoes of Mubarak’s style of leadership in Egypt’s current leader, the former general Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.
Mubarak was the first of the leaders toppled in a wave of Arab uprisings to face trial. In scenes that captivated Egyptians, he appeared in a courtroom cage on a range of charges.
He was acquitted by Egypt’s highest appeals court in March 2017 of conspiring to kill protesters in the final verdict in a long-running case that originally resulted in him being sentenced to life in prison in 2012 over the deaths of 239 people in protests against his rule. A separate corruption charge was overturned in January 2015.
The strongman often appeared in a frail state during his court appearances, attending on a stretcher and wearing dark sunglasses.
