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Sunday, 26 March 2017

Nation yawns as former president Hosni Mubarak is released, returns to Heliopolis home

Former president Hosni Mubarak is at home in Heliopolis, where he has an around-the-clock security detail and is not expected to enter detention again as he faces charges of improperly accepting gifts from Al Ahram newspaper during his rule. Mubarak, 88, was discharged early on Friday morning from Maadi Military Hospital and whisked to Heliopolis, where his lawyer says the former president had breakfast with his wife and two sons, Gamal and Alaa. Shocking just about no one, Mubarak’s release did not spark protests.

The story dominated international coverage of Egypt this weekend. Start with this high-profile piece by the New York Times’ Declan Walsh (“Egypt Roared as Mubarak Fell. It’s Mute as He’s Freed.”), then move on to more perfunctory offerings from the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Reuters (with a factbox) and the Associated Press (also with a factbox).

Egyptian journalists are far less interested in the return of the Heliopolite than are their foreign counterparts, with the domestic reaction quite muted. With nothing else to show, Al Shorouk ran down the various reactions activists and lawyers gave to foreign outlets, including The Guardian. The bottom line: His release was largely expected, and we all have plenty of more important things to worry about. Mubarak’s lawyer, Farid El Deeb, phoned in to ‘Ala Mas’ouleety to give television cretin Ahmed Moussa the blow-by-blow on Mubarak’s release (watch, runtime 21:58). Meanwhile, actor Ahmed Bedeir put his love for the former president on full display, telling Youm7 that Mubarak returning home is “righting a wrong” and that he was certain from the get-go that Hosni was innocent.

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