Egypt's prosecutor-general will issue a decision on ex-president Hosni Mubarak's release within 48 hours, a judical source told Ahram Online

Wael Shebl – the first attorney-general of central Cairo's prosecution office – said prosecutors have begun calculating the period Mubarak spent in preventative detention in order to deduct it from an earlier prison sentence.

In May, the 86-year-old former dictator was sentenced to three years in jail for embezzling public funds allocated for the upkeep of presidential palaces.

He was detained, pending trial, from April 2011 to August 2013, and was then transferred to house arrest after the preventative detention period expired.

Under Egypt's criminal proceedings law, this detention period is regarded as time served and will be deducted from the sentence. However, it is still unclear how much time Mubarak has left.

On Saturday, a court dropped charges against Mubarak over involvement in killing protesters during the January 2011 uprising. He was also acquitted over graft charges related to gas exports to Israel at below-market rates.

While Mubarak's supporters hailed the verdict, many of his opponents expressed their anger, with hundreds protesting in Tahrir Square, the site of an 18-day demonstration in 2011 that ended the autocrat's 30-year rule.