Mubarak has ‘heart attack’ after being jailed for life

By evening, a 10,000-strong crowd had gathered in Cairo’s Tahir Square, the birthplace of last year’s popular uprising, and in Alexandria and Suez to express their disgust at the rulings.

“Justice was not served,” said Ramadan Ahmed, whose son was killed on January 28 2011, the bloodiest day of the revolution. “This is a sham.” Meanwhile the protesters chanted: “A farce, a farce, this trial is a farce” and “The people want execution of the murderer.”

State TV had earlier announced that the 84-year-old former dictator had been taken ill in the helicopter flying him to the medical wing of Tora prison, in the Egyptian capital. Nile News, a state-owned news channel, said Mubarak had had a heart attack, but the nature of his condition has not been officially confirmed.

Said by his doctors to be too sick to be held in a cell, he has instead been in a luxury medical suite at a military hospital during his trial.

The Muslim Brotherhood, on its official Twitter account, denounced today’s proceedings. “Dr Mohammed Mursi, the presidential candidate, describes the verdict as ‘a farce’ and demands a retrial with the necessary evidence for a just punishment.”

“If the police commanders are innocent,” asked Mahmud Ghozlan, a Brotherhood official, “then who killed the protesters?”

Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak’s last prime minister and the presidential candidate who will compete with the Muslim Brotherhood in the election run-off, said that the verdicts proved that the new president would be unable to emulate the excesses of the old order.

“We do not have a right to comment on judicial rulings but this verdict indicates that no one is above questioning if the law requires,” he says. “Those rulings certainly disprove any claims that a presidential candidate can reproduce a ruling system that has ended.”

Mubarak’s legal team have said they will appeal against the verdicts and furious prosecution lawyers said they feared he would be successful.

“We will appeal. The ruling is full of legal flaws from every angle,” Yasser Bahr, a senior member of Mubarak’s defence team, said.

Mubarak, who wore dark sunglasses and a beige track-suit, had his arms folded and showed no emotion inside his caged dock, as Chief Judge Ahmed Refaat read out the verdict.

His two sons, Alaa and Gamal, looking tired with dark circles under their eyes, appeared close to tears on hearing the verdict. Further charges were levelled against them last week.

“It’s vindicating to Egyptians to see Mubarak and his interior minister sentenced to life, but the verdict raises more questions than answers,” said Hossam Bahgat, the director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, who was outside the court with members of the victims’ families.

“The court appears to have found no evidence that the killings were committed by policemen. It seems the court convicted Mubarak and Adly for failing to prevent the killings,” Mr Bahgat said.

“It’s 100 per cent certain that this will go to appeal and the court is very likely to order a retrial,” said Mr Bahgat, a respected activist and lawyer.

In delivering the ruling, Judge Refaat painted a grim picture of life under Mubarak, listing hardship after hardship suffered during his three decade rule.

He said some “went hungry” and spoke of conditions in the “rotting slums”.

The judge said the protesters who had participated in the 2011 uprising in Cairo’s Tahrir Square were “peaceful” and only wanted “justice, freedom and democracy”.

Outside the courtroom, jubilation turned to clashes and police used stun grenades to control the crowds.

Mubarak, the only autocrat toppled in the Arab Spring to be tried in person, Adly and the six others were facing charges over their involvement in ordering the deaths of some of the estimated 850 people killed.

The former president, his sons Alaa and Gamal and business associate Hussein Salem, who fled to Spain, were also on trial over an alleged bribe.

Mubarak was also accused of selling natural gas to Israel at lower than market prices.

A security official said 5,000 policemen and 2,000 soldiers had been deployed to secure the court, at the Police Academy on Cairo’s outskirts, to which the ailing

Mubarak was helicoptered in from a military hospital.

Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, declined to comment on today’s rulings. “That is up to the Egyptian people and their judicial system and their government,” she said.

Egypt has been ruled by the military since Mubarak was forced to resign on February 11 last year, after 18 days of nationwide protests.

Mubarak was held at a hospital in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh following his arrest last year, and the military appeared to bow to protester demands that he and former regime officials be put on trial.

But the military insists the prosecution’s investigations and the charges eventually filed were independent judicial decisions.

However, critics say the investigations were hasty and sloppy, resulting in a trial based on patchwork evidence that may see Mubarak acquitted.

The ex-president was brought to Cairo for the trial, which began on August 3, and has been held there since.

During the trial, Mubarak was wheeled into the lecture hall that serves as a courtroom on a stretcher. He reportedly suffers from a heart condition, but the health ministry has denied his lawyer’s claim that he has cancer.

Along with Adly, Mubarak’s co-defendants include six former police commanders.

They have all denied that they ordered police to shoot protesters or use deadly force during the uprising, in which demonstrators torched police stations across the country.

The verdict comes just two weeks before a run-off in presidential elections that will pit Mubarak’s former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq against the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Mursi in a highly polarising race.

It is the first openly contested presidential election in any of the Arab countries swept by regional protests and uprisings that challenged decades of autocratic rule.

But the revolt also led to a deteriorating economy and increased lawlessness in Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country, that has helped Shafiq, a symbol of Mubarak’s regime, win a surprising amount of support.