Cairo, February 06: Former Egyptian dictator, Hosni Mubarak, is likely to be moved to the capital Cairo's Torah prison hospital, a government official says.
Mubarak is currently being held at a military hospital on the outskirts of the capital.
Protesters have long been complaining that the ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) has been sparing Mubarak the humiliation of prison by keeping him in a military hospital.
Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim "is holding a meeting with some parliamentarians.... In this meeting, he issued a decision that Torah prison would be prepared as soon as possible for the transfer of the former president," Mohamed Naguib, an Interior Ministry official in charge of prison affairs, said on Sunday.
The comment came following a report saying the interior minister had ordered that the prison hospital be renovated to receive Mubarak.
The former dictator was forced to step down on February 11, 2011 after 18 days of popular revolution, ending 30 years of rule and paving the way for the SCAF’s assumption of power.
Naguib said that the prison hospital -- where other Mubarak-era officials have been detained -- would be ready in two months.
However, either the general prosecutor or the court trying Mubarak would have to issue an order to enable the transfer.
Earlier, responding to protesters’ demands, the interior minister had ordered that former officials under Mubarak and his one-time political allies held at Torah be split among five prisons.
The 83-year-old is facing trial for authorizing the use of force that resulted in the deaths of over 800 pro-democracy protesters during the revolution.
Mubarak is the first former Arab ruler to stand trial in person since the wave of popular uprisings, which has been sweeping the Middle East and North Africa since December 2010.
The developments come as the waves of popular uprising continue to sweep the Middle East and North Africa since their inception in Tunisia in December 2010. Mubarak is the first former Arab ruler to stand trial in person since the start of the anti-regime protests.
-------Agencies
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