Prosecution orders Mubarak back to prison hospital

Cairo, April 17 (IANS) Egypt's prosecution Wednesday ordered that former president Hosni Mubarak be sent back back to Tora Prison Hospital, Xinhua reported quoting official Al-Ahram news website.

Prosecution spokesman Mahmoud al-Hifnawi said Prosecutor-General Talaat Ibrahim Abdullah decided to discharge Mubarak from Maadi Military Hospital and send him back to the prison hospital "according to today's reports of the forensic medical commission that examined the ex-president in the military hospital".

Also on Wednesday, the Court of Appeals decided to set May 11 to retry Mubarak and his interior minister Habib al-Adli over the case of killing protesters in the unrest in January 2011.

The former president along with his two sons Gamal and Alaa, as well as fugitive tycoon Hussein Salem, will be retried over charges of financial corruption and profiteering.

The retrial had been set April 13, but it was adjourned as presiding judge Mustafa Hassan Abdullah withdrew from the case "due to feeling of uneasiness" and referred it to the Court of Appeals again to determine another judge.

The presiding judge withdrew after claimants rejected him and caused a state of disorder in the courtroom as he formerly acquitted ex-regime officials in a similar case.

Mubarak was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2012 for being responsible for killing protesters, but he appealed against the verdict. The Court of Cassation accepted the appeal and ordered a retrial for him and al-Adli.