Egyptian forces, protesters clash in Cairo

Scuffles have broken out between Egyptian security forces and a group of demonstrators protesting against a court ruling to release the two sons of ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak pending a corruption retrial.

On Thursday, scores of protesters gathered at Talaat Harb Square, which is located near the iconic Liberation Square, in the capital, Cairo, and chanted slogans against President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi and other military-backed authorities.

Clashes erupted between the protesters and Egyptian security forces after the latter attacked the demonstrators and fired teargas to disperse them.

Earlier in the day, an Egyptian court ordered the release of Alaa and Gamal Mubarak from a prison in Cairo. Judicial sources said the brothers were set free because they had already served the maximum pretrial detention period.

An appeals court earlier this month overturned a lower court conviction that saw the two being given four-year jail sentences for corruption. The court also dismissed the corruption charges leveled against Hosni Mubarak himself. In a ruling, the court also ordered the retrial of Mubarak and his two sons.

In December last year, protests rocked Egypt following an appeals court ruling that cleared Mubarak in a case involving the killing of protesters during the 2011 revolution, which resulted in his ouster.

The court also overturned the life sentence Mubarak and his co-defendants had received in June 2012. In a final verdict hearing in a Cairo court on June 2, the ex-dictator as well as former Interior Minister Habib al-Adli had been sentenced to life imprisonment for the killing of around 900 protesters during the uprising.

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