(AFP Photo)
The Court of Cassation sentenced Saturday former President Hosni Mubarak and his sons to three years in prison, in addition to an EGP 125m fine, in the Presidential Palaces embezzlement case.
The former president, who was toppled following the 25 January Revolution, has already served his time in prison intermittently between 2011 and 2015.
The court also decided the three have to repay EGP 21.1m to the state.
Mubarak and his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, were charged with acquiring almost EGP 126m from the Presidential Palace budget and using the money for the construction and development of family-owned assets. Mubarak was sentenced by the Cairo Criminal Court to three years in prison in May 2014, whilst his sons were handed 4-year prison sentences.
However, the Court of Cassation annulled the sentence in January 2015. It ordered the retrial of the former president and his sons following appeals from prosecution demanding tougher sentences, and from the Mubaraks’ defence team who consider the charges fabricated.
Mubarak was first detained on 12 April 2011, facing investigations about corruption and abuse of power. He remained in prison until he was released on 19 August 2013.
He was imprisoned pending investigations in the palaces case from 7 April 2013 to 19 August 2013, and again from 21 May 2014 to January 2015.
Egypt’s courts had acquitted and released the former president, his sons and many of his administration’s members of nearly all charges related to their time in power, four years after the revolution. Their acquittal comes after previous convictions and jail terms.
The embezzlement case was the latest trial for Mubarak. He currently resides at a Cairo military hospital.
In late April, the State Council’s Administrative Court referred a lawsuit, demanding the investigation of political crimes by Mubarak, to commissioners to issue a legal report on the case.
The lawsuit, filed by lawyer Samir Sabry, demanded compelling current President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to form a fact-finding committee to compile a report on corruption during Mubarak’s 30-year rule.
