Two sons of Egypt’s ousted leader Hosni Mubarak were freed from prison on Friday pending a graft retrial, state media reported.
Alaa and Gamal Mubarak left jail early Friday after a court ordered their release because they had served the maximum pretrial detention, the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper reported on its website, AFP wrote.
Mubarak, who was unseated in Egypt’s 2011 uprising, was convicted by a lower court on corruption charges with his two sons last year, with Alaa and Gamal receiving four-year sentences.
Their charges included embezzling at least $16 million earmarked for the maintenance of presidential palaces.
The retrial of the former leader and his two sons was ordered this month and their lawyer Farid al-Deeb said at the time that the elder Mubarak, who is in a military hospital, would also be free.
But state media reported there had been no orders yet for his release and there have been no signs of the 86-year-old leaving the hospital.
The release of the Mubaraks presents a dilemma for President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former army chief whom opponents accuse of reviving Mubarak-era practices.
Sisi took power after ousting Egypt’s first post-revolution leader -- Islamist president Mohamed Morsi -- in 2013 and won an election last year. But he has faced accusations of being even more authoritarian than Mubarak, unleashing a crackdown on Morsi supporters that has killed at least 1,400 people.
