After six years in detention, Hosni Mubarak walked free from a military hospital in Cairo on Friday.

An appeals court earlier this month acquitted Mubarak of ordering the death of protestors during the 2011 revolution that toppled him after 30 years in power. About 850 protestors were killed in police clashes with demonstrators during the 18-day revolt.

The 88-year-old and his two sons were convicted to a three year sentence and ordered to pay millions of dollars in fines for embezzlement of state funds. An appeals court in 2016 upheld the conviction but took into account time already served.

Mubarak was arrested in April 2011, two months after he was ousted. He has spent most of the time in a military hospital.  

In 2012, a court handed him a life sentence for murdering 239 demonstrators, but an appeals court in 2014 ordered a retrial and the case was dropped.

Nearly two dozen former Mubarak-era officials in recent years have been acquitted of their role in corruption and protestor deaths.  

Meanwhile, hundreds of pro-democracy activists and Islamist politicians have been rounded up as President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi consolidates power after toppling Mubarak's Islamist successor after one year in office.

cw/kms (AFP, dpa, Reuters)