Egyptian Army: Mubarak, Family under House Arrest

Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces announced on Monday that the country's first parliamentary election since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak would be held in September and announced that Mubarak and his family were not allowed to leave the country.

The military council, to which Mubarak handed power on February 11, said on Monday that the former President and his family are under house arrest and denied they have fled to Saudi Arabia. "There is no truth to reports that former president Hosni Mubarak has left Egypt for Tabuk in Saudi Arabia," the country's military rulers said in a statement. "He is under house arrest, with his family, in Egypt," it said.

Media reports suggested that Mubarak had gone to Tabuk to receive medical treatment. The state-owned daily Al-Akhbar claimed Mubarak, 82, was receiving medical treatment for cancer.

Meanwhile, Egypt's military rulers declared that the country will hold its first parliamentary election since Mubarak's fall in September and announced that the decades-long state of emergency will be lifted for the polls. "But no date has yet been decided for a presidential vote," said General Mamduh Shahin of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

"The legislative elections will be held in September," he told reporters. "We must hold legislative elections and when that is done we will announce the date for the presidential polls," Shahin said.

The military council stepped in to fill the political vacuum in Egypt when Mubarak quit on February 11 after three decades of autocratic rule. The state of emergency was imposed after the 1981 assassination of Mubarak's predecessor Anwar Sadat by Islamist gunmen at a military parade and was never lifted.

"Parliamentary and presidential elections will not be held under the state of emergency," Shahin said.

Earlier this month the council organized a key referendum on proposed constitutional amendments, paving the way for post-Mubarak parliamentary and legislative elections within six months.

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