The prosecutor’s office said it decided to appeal as “the ruling was marred by a legal flaw.”

Egypt’s public prosecutor on Tuesday appealed a court ruling that dropped charges against former president Hosni Mubarak, his interior minister and six aides over the killing of protesters in a 2011 uprising.

“A study of the reasons for the ruling revealed legal flaws that tinged the judgment,” public prosecutor Hesham Barakat said in a statement.

The appeals court must now decide whether to accept the appeal and order a retrial or to reject it, thereby upholding the decision to drop the criminal charges against Mubarak.

Mubarak, now 86, was sentenced to life in prison in 2012 for conspiring to murder 239 demonstrators during an 18-day revolt that ended his 30-year rule, but an appeals court ordered a retrial.

On Saturday, the court dropped its case against Mubarak, igniting protests in Cairo in which two people were killed. Seven of Mubarak’s security commanders, including feared ex-interior minister Habib al-Adly, were acquitted over the Jan. 25, 2011 deaths.

His lawyer has said Mubarak could now see an early release from the military hospital where he is being held, as he has already served two-thirds of his sentence when time held in preliminary detention since his arrest in 2011 is taken into account.

After Saturday’s verdict, more than 1,000 protesters gathered at an entrance to Cairo’s Tahrir Square — the epicenter of the 2011 revolt — chanting slogans against the country’s authorities.

Resulting clashes left two people dead and several wounded.

 
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