Prosecutors in Cairo have demanded that former president Hosni Mubarak receive the death penalty for ordering the killing of protesters in February last year.

During the trial in Cairo, chief prosecutor Mustafa Suleiman said: “The law foresees the death penalty for premeditated murder,” reports the Paris-based news service AFP.

Former interior minister Habib el-Adly is also on trial for his role in the killings. Suleiman said that he could “not have given the order to fire on demonstrators without having been instructed to do so by Mubarak”.

The protests began in January 2011 as anti-corruption rallies, but soon escalated to call for the remove of Mubarak and his regime. His two sons, Gamal and Alaa, are facing corruption charges in the same trial.