Political forces denounced the ruling in the case against Hosni Mubarak and 10 other defendants that sentenced the former president and his interior minister to life but acquitted the rest of the accused.
Salafi Nour Party spokesperson Nader Bakkar called for challenging the ruling issued against Mubarak and former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly on charges related to the deaths of more than 800 protesters across the nation during last year's uprising.
“Shock and then fury now grip the Egyptian street, ” he wrote on his Facebook page. “How come Adly’s assistants were not indicted like he was?”
Six senior security officials were found not guilty because there was no concrete evidence to incriminate them, according to head judge Ahmed Refaat. Mubarak, his sons Gamal and Alaa Mubarak and businessman Hussein Salem were also acquitted on charges of squandering public money.
Yasser Aly, the spokesperson for Mohamed Morsy's presidential campaign, said the evidence submitted against all the defendants was lacking and accused the prosecution of not doing its work to gather enough evidence for more convictions.
He expressed surprise at the fact that while Mubarak and Adly received life sentences, Adly’s assistants were exonerated in the same case, saying the verdicts are contradictory.
Aly described the ruling as “farcical” and said it does not measure up to the seriousness of the crimes of killing protesters and injuring thousands, some of whom were permanently disabled. He called on all state institutions to provide information to bring the defendants to trial again.
Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh, the presidential candidate who ranked fourth in the first round of elections, condemned the rulings and also urged a retrial.
“The innocence of Adly’s assistants is an exoneration for the power of suppression and corruption which still rules Egypt. The voluntary negligence in providing evidence necessitates retrial,” he wrote on Twitter.
The verdict will likely have implications on the presidential runoffs between Morsy and Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak's last prime minister, that are set to take place in two weeks.
Following the verdict, Ghad al-Thawra Party head and former presidential candidate Ayman Nour said he will now support Morsy.
“After the issuing of these light sentences, I personally declare my support for Mohamed Morsy and we will discuss the matter in the meeting for the party’s supreme authority,” he wrote on Twitter.
Like many, Bakkar, the Nour Party spokesperson, said that the nature of the criminal court is not suitable for the case and a special political court should have been formed to handle the trial from the beginning.
“The ruling should be appealed and all the crimes of torture and killing they carried out before the revolution be investigated,” he wrote. He called on all concerned authorities, including the Interior Ministry and intelligence services, to provide the necessary information to that end. Bakkar ended his message by saying, “political trials were the solution since the start.”
Mohamed ElBaradei, the former chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency and once presidential hopeful, was also critical of the court.
"Old regime puts itself on trial. Continued efforts to abort the revolution in cahoots with established political forces. A critical juncture," he said on his Twitter account.
Shafiq gave the verdict a positive spin, saying the ruling is proof that no new president can reproduce the old regime and that no one is above the law, according to state-run newspaper Al-Ahram. He reiterated his acceptance of the court ruling and his trust in the judiciary.
