Mubarak to face retrial over protester deaths

Egypt's former president, Hosni Mubarak, is to be retried over his alleged role in the deaths of hundreds of protesters in the 2011 uprising that unseated him.

The decision by Cairo's Court of Cassation reopens a case that began in 2012, when Mubarak, now 87, was sentenced to life in prison for conspiring to murder 239 demonstrators and creating a security vacuum during the 18-day revolt the previous year.

Last November an appeals court ordered a retrial after a defence appeal. The prosecution then dropped the case, leading to a challenge that lead to Thursday's ruling.

Mubarak is now scheduled to stand trial in November. 

The court "accepts the prosecution's appeal and has set a session for November 5 to review it", judge Anwar el-Gabry announced. 

Lawyers told the Reuters news agency that the court upheld other cases that cleared Mubarak and his sons of corruption charges. It also upheld a previous ruling that cleared Mubarak's former interior minister, Habib al-Adly, and six aides. The defendants had denied the charges.

Many leading Mubarak-era figures have had charges against them dropped since the overthrow of the Morsi government in 2013.