Egypt's Hosni Mubarak put on respirator in jail

Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's former president, has been put on a respirator by prison doctors after a series of "tantrums" drove up his blood pressure and affected his breathing, officials said on Wednesday.

Officers at the Torah prison south of Cairo, where Mubarak has been held since being jailed for life on Saturday, were forced to call in medical specialists after his condition deteriorated.

They had to administer oxygen five times before his breathing stabilised, according to officials at the prison. A request to transfer him to a non-prison hospital was now being considered, they said - a step that could anger Egyptian protesters who have already taken to the streets to denounce the acquittal of senior officials charged alongside the ousted president.

Mubarak, 84, is said to have fallen into a profound depression since his conviction on charges of failing to stop the killing of protesters in the uprising that unseated him 16 months ago.

At first he declined to eat, although he was eventually persuaded to do so after officials allowed his son Alaa, who is being held in the same jail, to feed him.

"Mubarak had been gripped by a fit of tantrums that made him refuse to talk with his medical team or eat," one prison official was quoted as saying.

The former president's condition is said to have deteriorated after he was visited on Monday by his wife Suzanne, who is said to have sobbed after seeing him dressed in prison-issue blue overalls.