CAIRO: Zakariah Azmy, the chief of staff of deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, was detained on Thursday for 15 days on suspicion of illegally acquiring his wealth, state television reported.
Azmy, one of the former president’s closest aides, is under investigation by an anti-corruption panel that has also summoned Mubarak’s younger son Gamal for questioning. Gamal is expected to appear before the panel next week.
Azmi was questioned this week by Essam Al-Gawahri, a senior Justice Ministry official heading the panel.
A judicial source told AFP Azmy is suspected of "inflating his wealth in a way that does not accord with his legal income."
If charges are filed against Azmy, he may be latest senior former regime official to go on trial.
The announcement ccame a day before a planned demonstration in Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square to demand the purge and trial of former regime officials, with Mubarak at their head.
The military, which assumed power after protests forced Mubarak to resign in February, has said it formed a panel to investigate the former president’s wealth.
Mubarak, his wife Suzanne and his two sons Alaa and Gamal and their wives have already been banned from travel and had their assets ordered frozen.
Several of his ministers as well as some businessmen close to the regime were arrested and banned from leaving Egypt after having their funds frozen.
The first member of Mubarak’s regime to be put on trial was the much reviled former interior minister Habib El-Adly, whose security forces were given wide powers of arrest under the emergency law.
