CAIRO — Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian strongman ousted last year after 30 years in power, was moved to an army hospital from a prison hospital on Thursday following a fall that raised fresh concerns about his fragile health.
Mubarak, 84, was forced out in a 2011 uprising and sentenced to life in prison in June of this year for his role in killing protesters during the revolt. He was admitted to a prison hospital that month following what security officials called a "health crisis".
Mubarak's health has been the subject of intense speculation in Egypt and he has spent much of the time before and after his trial in the prison hospital.
His lawyer said he was transferred to the military hospital after fracturing a rib in the fall in his prison clinic. He said he also suffered from lung complications and dizziness.
"The health condition is deteriorating to some extent due to the president's fall the week before last," lawyer Mohamed Abdel Razek told Reuters.
Mubarak is to be treated at the military hospital in Cairo's Maadi suburb. "He will stay for awhile," a security source told Reuters.
Mubarak's legal team had been pressing to have him moved from the prison hospital to a better-equipped facility, saying he was not receiving adequate treatment.
There has been no clarity, however, on the exact nature of any of his ailments, with state media reporting a variety of illnesses ranging from shortage of breath to heart attacks and comas.
On July 16 Mubarak was sent back to prison on the orders of the former public prosecutor who said his health had improved and he no longer needed the advanced care of the military hospital where he had been moved in June.
At the time, senior officers and military sources gave various accounts of Mubarak's condition, including that he was in a coma and on life support.
The fate of his family, accused by Egypt's new rulers of accumulating vast wealth illegally during Mubarak's long reign, is also the subject of much speculation.
Public prosecutor Talaat Abdallah has agreed to a request from Egypt's illicit gains authority investigating corruption to confiscate funds from two bank accounts belonging to Mubarak's wife Suzanne and move them to the central bank, the MENA news agency said.
The state newspaper al-Ahram said the amount to be confiscated was 27 million Egyptian pounds ($4.4 million). In May 2011 Suzanne Mubarak was released from detention on graft accusations and relinquished some of her assets to the state.
Mubarak's two sons are also being held in prison, facing trial on graft charges, which they deny.
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