Egyptian Court Sentences Ex-President to Prison After Two Acquittals

The former president, overthrown in a 2011 uprising, has been sentenced to three years on corruption charges after previous acquittals for graft and murder.

A court in Cairo sentenced former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to three years in jail on decade-long embezzlement charges on Saturday.

It is unclear if Mubarak will serve any of the sentence since he has already served more than three years in prison as part a previous sentence. In November 2014 he was acquitted of involvement in the killing of 846 protesters during the 2011 uprising.

Mubarak's supporters, some of whom wore t-shirts with his image, reportedly waved and blew kisses to him when he entered the courtroom. In his January acquittal on murder charges Mubarak was hugged and kissed by cheering supporters in the courtroom.

The court is also said to have cut the sentence for his two sons to three years from four in the same case. Mubarak and his sons were also ordered to pay a $16.3 million fine and to return the $2.7 million that they embezzled.

In May 2014, the court sentenced Mubarak to three years in prison for seizing more than $14 million allocated for the renovation of the country's presidential palaces. His sons, Gamal and Alaa, were sentenced to four years. In January, Egypt's court overturned the charges over irregularities in legal proceedings.

Mubarak served as the Egyptian president for almost 30 years from 1981 until he was ousted following an uprising that started in February 2011.