clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

Egypt won’t fine Mubarak for 2011 telecoms shut down

March 26, 2018 at 12:18 pm

Ousted Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak [Apaimages]

An Egyptian court has ruled against fining former president Hosni Mubarak and two of his aides for a telecommunications shutdown during the 2011 uprising, a judicial source said on Saturday.

During the revolution, authorities shut off internet and mobile phone services during the crackdown on protesters to prevent Egyptians from using social networks to plan further protest movements that would eventually oust Mubarak.

As a result, Egypt’s four main internet service providers cut off international access to their customers and mobile services were disrupted in what critics said was the most comprehensive official electronic blackout of its kind.

Read: Egypt court suspends 2011 decision to freeze assets of Mubarak-era minister

The Supreme Administrative Court ordered Mubarak, his prime minister Ahmad Nazif and his interior minister Habib Al-Adly to pay a total of $30.6 million in damages.

However a court over the weekend overruled that decision.

Mubarak was tried in August 2011 for his involvement in the killing of protesters and corruption and detained in a military hospital but was freed in March last year after he was acquitted of all charges after serving three years in jail.

In January this year, a court overturned a seven-year prison sentence against Al-Adly and ordered a retrial on accusations of embezzlement. Nazif was sentenced in 2011 to three years in prison for corruption.