CAIRO
Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak said on Saturday he had not committed any crime, in his first remarks following a court decision to drop charges against him of complicity in the killing of demonstrators during a 2011 revolution.
In a phone interview with the private Sada al-Balad channel, Mubarak said that he was surprised when a popular uprising erupted against him in 2011.
"I have not committed any crime," said Mubarak, who was forced to step down in 2011 following an 18-day uprising.
Mubarak declined to accuse the United States or any other country of masterminding the revolution against his regime.
"I can't speak about what happened over the phone," Mubarak said in the interview, his first since his ouster in 2011.
On Saturday, a Cairo court dropped the case against Mubarak on charges of conspiring in the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising.
The court also cleared ex-interior minister Habib al-Adly and six former top security officials of charges of ordering the murder of the anti-regime protesters.
The judge also cleared Mubarak of corruption charges related to gas exports to Israel and dropped another corruption charge against the former president, his two sons Alaa and Gamal and business tycoon Hussein Salem, saying that too much time had elapsed since the alleged crime took place for the court to rule in the case.
In late 2012, Mubarak and al-Adly were both sentenced to 25 years in prison for ordering the murder of demonstrators during the uprising.
The court later ordered a retrial, however, after the former president's lawyers successfully appealed the sentence.
Mubarak said his first reaction to the 2012 ruling was to scoff.
"I was waiting for the verdict in the retrial on Saturday," Mubarak said. "It did not make any difference anyway," he added.
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