Egypt court orders police chief reinstated

An Egyptian court on Saturday ordered the reinstatement of a former police chief who had been charged alongside toppled president Hosni Mubarak with killing demonstrators but was acquitted. The official MENA news agency said the court ordered that Omar Faramawi, who was formerly responsible for security at the Six October area near the capital and was also a deputy interior minister, be reinstated at his ministry post. Faramawi and five other security chiefs went on trial at the same time as the veteran strongman, charged with responsibility for the deaths of some of the estimated 850 people killed in last year's revolt that led to Mubarak's ouster. Both Mubarak and his interior minister Habib al-Adly were convicted and sentenced on June 2 to life terms. But the acquittal of the six security chiefs in the same case sparked outrage across Egypt and criticism from international rights groups which said the verdict could provide impunity for police violence. The prosecution had asked for the death penalty for Mubarak, Adly and the six security chiefs.