Africa, Hosni Mubarak | featured news

Egyptians began voting freely on Wednesday for the first time to pick their president in a wide open election that pits Islamists against men who served under deposed leader Hosni Mubarak.

A prosecutor in the trial of Hosni Mubarak demanded on Thursday that the ousted Egyptian leader be sentenced to hang on charges of complicity in the killing of protesters.

Hosni Mubarak's lawyer said the ousted Egyptian president has suffered a stroke and is in a coma. However, a doctor at the hospital where Mubarak has been held under arrest denied the report.

Egypt sacked nearly 600 top police officers Wednesday, the start of a promised cleansing of a force blamed for chronic abuses during the rule of Hosni Mubarak, state television reported.

Egyptian state television announced Tuesday that former First Lady Suzanne Mubarak had been officially released after turning over $4 million in assets to the finance ministry, according to Assem Gohari, the head of the country's illicit-gains authority.

Hosni Mubarak will remain in detention for at least another 15 days, as prosecutors further investigate the former Egyptian president and other high-ranking members of his deposed government, state media reported.

The United States is studying ways to support Egypt's economy following Hosni Mubarak's overthrow, the U.S. embassy said on Monday after a U.S. newspaper said Washington had decided to provide $1 billion in debt relief.

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak could be executed if he is convicted of ordering the killing of protesters, Egypt's justice minister said Wednesday.

A court ordered the dissolving of Egypt's former ruling party on Saturday, meeting a major demand of the protesters who wanted to ensure that the party that monopolized the country's politics and government for decades is definitively broken after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.

Even if the former president and his sons are eventually cleared, the fact that they are being brought before the law means the world to many Egyptians.For almost three decades he wielded unquestioned power, a seemingly invincible figure ruling with a sense of privilege and ruthlessness that epitomized autocrats across the Middle East.