By John Okeke
Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president for almost 30 years who stepped down after a popular revolution in 2011, has died. He was 91.
Mubarak served as Egypt’s fourth president starting in 1981 until his removal in what became known as the Arab Spring revolution.
He was jailed for years after the uprising, but was freed in 2017 after being acquitted of most charges. The acquittal stunned many Egyptians, thousands of whom poured into central Cairo to show their anger against the court.
The Arab Spring protests convulsed regimes across the Middle East.
State media said Mubarak died at a Cairo hospital where he had undergone an unspecified surgery. The report said he had health complications but offered no other details. One of his sons, Alaa, announced over the weekend the former president was in an intensive care after undergoing surgery.
His brother-in-law, General Mounir Thabet, told the Media he passed away at Cairo’s Galaa military hospital.
Egypt’s presidency said in a statement that it mourned Mubarak’s death as a “military leader and war hero” and has offered its condolences to his family.
The former air force officer will be buried in a military funeral but the timing was still unclear, a military source told the media.
