Egypt: Hosni Mubarak ordered back to jail

GlobalPost

Hosni Mubarak could return to jail as soon as today, according to Egyptian media.

Reports cited by the Associated Press said Prosecutor General Abdel Maguid Mahmoud had ordered the former president to leave the Cairo military hospital in which he's currently staying, due to an apparent improvement in his health.

Mubarak, 84, will be moved into the medical wing of Tora prison, the official MENA news agency reported.

He was taken to the Maadi military hospital last month, where he was reportedly put on life support after a series of strokes. At one point he was rumored to be "clinically dead," though officials later denied it.

More from GlobalPost: Hosni Mubarak 'on life support'

Earlier this month, the prosecutor general asked a panel of doctors to assess Mubarak's health.

They agreed that his "health is currently stable with medication, and it is considered good for someone of his age," Agence France Presse quoted deputy prosecutor general Adel al-Saeed as saying.

According to the AP, the decision means Mubarak could be moved as soon as this afternoon.

He was sent to prison at the beginning of June, after a court convicted him of failing to prevent the killing of protesters during Egypt's uprising last year.

Since then there have been a series of conflicting reports about his health that have put him, variously, in a full coma, without a pulse, depressed, or in stable condition and undergoing regular physiotherapy sessions. According to GlobalPost's Erin Cunningham in Cairo, many Egyptians now greet any news of Mubarak's health with skepticism.

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