A Cairo prosecutor has ordered that Egypt’s ousted president Hosni Mubarak, 88, be released from a military hospital. The decision ends nearly six years of legal proceedings against the former president, who was in power for three decades before being ousted in 2011. The prosecutor, Ibrahim Saleh, told The Associated Press that he ordered Mubarak’s release after he accepted a petition by the former president’s lawyer for his freedom on the basis of time already served. Mubarak was acquitted by the country’s top appeals court on March 2 of charges that he ordered the killing of protesters during the 2011 revolution. That verdict, according to Saleh, cleared the way for Mubarak’s lawyer to request his release. News of Mubarak’s imminent release was greeted jubilantly by his supporters on a Facebook page entitled “I am sorry, Mr. President.”