Hosni Mubarak, former Egyptian autocrat ousted in the events of the 2011 Arab Spring, was freed Friday from the military hospital. Mubarak had spent most of the past six years in detention.

The release of the 88-year-old who ruled Egypt for three decades would have been unthinkable several years ago, but revolutionary fervor gave way to exhaustion and even nostalgia in the uprising’s chaotic aftermath.

His lawyer Farid al-Deeb told AFP that the former president had gone home to a villa in Cairo’s Heliopolis district.

Mubarak had reportedly suffered health problems during his detention. He was briefly imprisoned until he slipped in a prison shower and was then transferred to the military hospital.

Mubarak was accused of inciting the deaths of protesters during the 18-day revolt, in which about 850 people were killed as police clashed with demonstrators.

He was sentenced to life in jail in 2012 in the case, but an appeals court ordered a retrial which dismissed the charges two years later.

Egypt’s top appeals court on March 2 acquitted him of involvement in the killings.

Throughout his trial prosecutors had been unable to provide conclusive evidence of Mubarak’s complicity — a result, lawyers said, of having hastily put together the case against him in 2011 following demonstrations.

In January 2016, the appeals court upheld a three-year prison sentence for Mubarak and his two sons on corruption charges.

But the sentence took into account time served. Both of his sons, Alaa and Gamal, were freed.

On Thursday, a court ordered a renewed corruption investigation into Mubarak for allegedly receiving gifts from the state owned Al-Ahram newspaper. He is also banned from travel.

During his detention, Mubarak had remained defiant and denied wrongdoing.

“When I heard the first verdict I laughed. I said: ‘Ha!’,” he told a private broadcaster after his 2012 sentencing.

“I did nothing wrong at all,” he said.