By MATT BRADLEY

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Ousted President Hosni Mubarak sat inside a cage in the courtroom during his verdict hearing in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday.

CAIRO—An Egyptian court sentenced ousted President Hosni Mubarak to life in prison for his responsibility in the deaths of hundreds of anti-government protesters during an uprising last year.
Judge Ahmed Rifaat said Mr. Mubarak and his former interior minister, Habib al Adli, were guilty on charges of accessory to murder and attempted murder of protesters. But he acquitted the six senior interior ministry officials whom prosecutors had also accused of killing protesters.
Mr. Mubarak and his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, were acquitted of corruption charges related to the suspicious purchase of seaside villas on Egypt's Red Sea Coast. Mr. Rifaat ruled that the accusations, which date to more than 10 years ago, had exceeded Egypt's statute of limitations.
The relatively harsh verdict sets a precedent for justice in the so-called "Arab Spring" of successive pro-democracy uprisings. Mr. Mubarak remains the first leader in the history of the Arab world to be overthrown and face trial in front of his own people.


Associated Press Egyptians outside the courtroom in Cairo, Egypt, react after hearing from a car radio the verdict of ousted President Hosni Mubarak on Saturday.

The verdict's reading brings an end to a 10-month trial that has kept Egyptians in thrall. The sight of a sickly Mr. Mubarak, who for nearly 30 years has acted as Egypt's undisputed strongman, splayed on a stretcher behind bars tantalized a region that has been ruled for generations by calcified dictators.
But in the run-up to Saturday's verdict, the chaotic proceedings had led many lawyers, activists and legal observers to doubt that Mr. Mubarak would take such a tough sentence. The poorly organized prosecution team was ill-equipped to investigate the trial and they offered no solid evidence connecting Mr. Mubarak to the crime of murder. Much of the prosecution's logic rested on the reductive argument that as president, Mr. Mubarak must have known—and failed to halt—the killing of demonstrators.
In street cafes throughout the country, Egyptians huddled around television screens to await the final decision in what newspapers alternately called the "trial of the century" and the "fate of the last pharaoh."
Race to Lead Egypt

Preliminary results placed Messrs. Morsi, and Shafiq as the two candidates entering a June 16-17 runoff. Thirteen candidates were on the ballot.

Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi, right, and Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq.




Mr. Mubarak arrived at the court by helicopter and was rolled into the defendants' cage on a gurney. He wore what has become his typical courtroom garb: a pair of dark sunglasses, all-white tracksuit and, for this session, a beige jacket as opposed to his usual blue.
Thousands of police officers and military personnel in riot gear met hundreds of demonstrators outside the courtroom in a suburb of Cairo. The soldiers formed a tense barrier between the ranks of Mr. Mubarak's supporters and opponents.
Mr. Mubarak and his co-defendants, including his two sons Alaa and Gamal, said nothing except to announce their presence to Mr. Rifaat.
Before reading the verdict, Mr. Rifaat titillated millions of viewers with an extended monologue in praise the revolution and the ordinary Egyptians who affected it. In the lofty tones of a classical Arabic poem, Mr. Rifaat scolded the defendants for laying waste to the nation they ruled for nearly three decades.
"Mubarak's reign was a dark, black, black, black hopeless era that has given way to a new dawn," he said.
Write to Matt Bradley at [email protected]