An Egyptian court on Saturday postponed until November 29 its verdict in the retrial of former President Hosni Mubarak for alleged complicity in the killing of protesters during the 2011 revolution that toppled him.
Chief Judge Mahmoud Kamel el-Rashidi said during the televised trial that the case contained 160,000 papers, and reading through them was taking time.
“We have written 60 per cent of the verdict’s reasons but still haven’t finished, that’s why we are postponing issuing this verdict,” said the judge as he postponed the verdict until November 29.
The court also screened a short documentary showing the 160,000 papers which were gathered into two rooms in the judge’s residence.
The 86-year-old former strongman, dressed in a blue uniform of a convicted felon and wearing his trademark shades, was wheeled on an upright stretcher into the caged dock. When the names of the defendants were called out, Mubarak responded by raising his hand.
He arrived in a helicopter to New Cairo’s Police Academy ahead of the expected verdict. Several of Mubarak’s supporters and opponents gathered outside the academy where Cairo’s Criminal Court was expected to issue its verdict in the re-trial.