Reinstated prosecutor general resigns

Prosecutor General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud resigned from his post on Friday shortly after being reinstated by the Cassation Court earlier this week, local media reported. 

The Court of Cassation ordered Mahmoud's reinstatement, replacing Talaat Abdallah, who was appointed by deposed President Mohamed Morsi to the post in November 2012. Abdallah has been accused of being partisan to Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. 

In his resignation letter, published by the privately-owned daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, Mahmoud wrote, "We reached our aim and the message was delivered. The General Prosecution has been saved from intervention and Brotherhoodization." Mahmoud praised the June 30 popular call for Morsi's ouster, and the subsequent military intervention that deposed him. He also said that he had appealed his arbitrary sacking by the former president not with the aim of regaining his post, but to save the independence of the judiciary from Brotherhood control.

The removal of the fallen Hosni Mubarak regime's prosecutor general was a key demand of January 25 revolutionaries during the transitional period presided over by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. They demanded his deposal after a series of innocent verdicts were handed down to security and government officials on trial for the killing of protesters, corruption and profiteering.

However, Morsi removed Mahmoud in a manner that violated the Judicial Authority Law, angering many members of the opposition and leading to instability within the prosecutor general office. Some members went on strike in protest against the president's interference in sovereign judicial affairs.