Egyptian army soldiers on armored vehicles guard Torah Prison, where ousted President Hosni Mubarak is held in Cairo.

Egypt’s military-appointed government ordered Mubarak transferred from prison to house arrest late Wednesday after a court said he could no longer legally be held behind bars.

The order, announced by the Cabinet, did not specify when the transfer would take place or where Mubarak would be moved, but said it could happen as early as today. Mubarak, who led Egypt for 30 years, has spent the past 17 months in prison.

Mubarak’s release from prison to a much milder form of incarceration injects a potentially volatile new element into the political crisis that has been convulsing the country in the six weeks since the military ousted the man who replaced Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president. Morsi remains under indefinite detention in an undisclosed location with no access to legal counsel.

The announcement regarding Mubarak came after an Egyptian court ruled that all appeals by prosecutors to keep him locked in prison had been exhausted.

— New York Times News Service