Egyptian media reports say a Cairo prosecutor authorized Monday the release of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, ending almost six years of legal matters.

The order came after an appeals court exonerated the long-ruling autocrat of participation in the killing of protesters in a 2011 riot that ended his nearly three-decade reign.

Mubarak is still banned from leaving Egypt pending an ongoing corruption investigation, but “he can go home now when the doctors decide he is able to,” Mubarak’s lawyer Farid al-Deeb told reporters.

The ex-leader has spent the last six years in detention in a military hospital in Cairo. He also served a three-year sentence in a separate corruption case while in the hospital.

Mubarak, his interior minister and six aides were sentenced to life in prison in 2012, but another court overturned the verdict two years later, citing technical flaws in the prosecution. He was acquitted in March 2.

Hundreds of protesters were killed in clashes with police and Mubarak supporters during the 18-day uprising, part of the Arab Spring protests that swept the region.

The military overthrew Mubarak’s successor and Egypt’s first freely elected  civilian President, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, in 2013.
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