(CBS/AP) CAIRO — Egypt's ex-President Hosni Mubarak was sentenced to life in prison Saturday at his trial on charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during last year's uprising that forced him from power.
His former interior minister got the same sentence.
Mubarak was the first Arab leader to be tried by his own people in the country.
State TV showed live images as an ambulance carried the 84-year-old Mubarak from the helicopter to the courtroom in a police academy that has been transformed into a courthouse.
Mubarak, dressed in a light brown jumpsuit, tried to hide his face from the cameras while lying on a hospital gurney.
Thousands of riot police cordoned off the building to prevent protesters and relatives of those slain during the uprising from getting too close. Hundreds stood outside, waving Egyptian flags and chanting slogans demanding "retribution." Some spread Mubarak's picture on the asphalt and walked over it.
The trial mesmerized the nation, with images of Mubarak lying on a hospital gurney inside a defendants' cage of iron bars and barbed wire taken by most Egyptians to symbolize both their triumph over tyranny and the humiliation of a dictator who ruled for close to 30 years.
But the joy that followed Mubarak's ouster on Feb. 11, 2011, has turned to disappointment after more than a year of turmoil, with protesters challenging the military rulers who took the reins of the country, a rise in crime and an economic decline.
The verdict also comes as political tensions are high ahead of a heated runoff for president that pits Mubarak's last prime minister Ahmed Shafiq against the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate Mohammed Morsi.
Ali el-Genadi, whose son was killed while protesting, said he expected Mubarak to be acquitted by what he called a "politicized" judiciary.
"There is no justice in Egypt as long as it is being ruled by the same regime," he said. "Nothing has changed."
