Prosecutor General Tala’at Abdallah banned 26 figures considered affiliates of the former regime from accessing their assets or liquid funds, in addition to banning them from travelling due to pending investigations in front of the Supreme Public Funds Prosecution. The decision came following investigations carried out by Mostafa Husseiny, the attorney general for the Supreme Public Fund Prosecution.
The investigations disclosed that between 1984 and 2011 Ibrahim Nafea,former chairperson of board of directors at Al-Ahram Foundation, was giving away gifts from the foundation’s budget to former state officials.
Gifts given to key officials of the former regime included watches, golden pens, gold pounds, diamonds and jewelry, according to state-run Al-Ahram. Successive chairpersons to Nafea followed the practice despite the foundation having suffered from financial stresses and tax debts that reached EGP 1.6bn.
According to Al-Ahram, the investigations revealed that former President Hosni Mubarak had received gifts worth EGP 7m in the period between 2006 and 2011. Hisham Geneina, head of Central Auditing Organisation, addressed the prosecutor general with a list of names that received these types of gifts. Between 2006 and 2011, around EGP 50m worth of gifts were found under a bill of advertisement costs by Al-Ahram Foundation.
The bill stated the gifts were meant for the revitalisation of the foundation’s activities, but investigations showed there were no professional relationships between the listed former state officials and the activities of Al-Ahram foundation regarding, printing, publishing and advertisement. The investigation stated the foundation officials’ practices facilitated the process of taking possession of public funds and illegal profiteering, in addition to intentionally damaging the foundation’s funds.
According to Al-Ahram, the investigations carried by the attorney general stated the prosecution office is forming a committee to screen the value of gifts spent out of the foundation’s budget from 1984 to 2011; the budget of Al-Ahram Foundation exceeded EGP 100m.
Al-Ahram listed the figures banned from travelling: former President Hosni Mubarak; Alaa and Gamal Mubarak; Suzanne Saleh Mustafa, Mubarak’s wife; Heidi Rasekh; Khadeega El-Gamal; Ahmed Nazif, former prime minister; Dr Zakaria Azmy, former chief of presidential staff; Safwat El-Sherif, former head of Shura Council; Dr Ahmed Fathy Soroor, former head of the People’s Assembly; Dr Mofeed Shehab, former minister of legal affairs and Parliamentary Councils; Dr Yousef Boutros Ghali, former minister of finance (in absentia); Dr Hatem El-Gabaly, minister of health; Habeeb El-Adl, former minister of interior, Samy Mahran, former secretary general of the People’s Assembly; Ibrahim Nafa’a, Morsy Attallah, Dr Abdel Moneim Saeed and Salah El-Ghamry, former chairpersons of Al-Ahram Foundation; and Abdallah Kamal, former editor-in-cheif of Rose El-Youssef newspaper.
