In his forthcoming visit to Egypt next Saturday, Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber will address the CHF 700m that the Mubarak embezzled in under the pretence of restoration to the presidential palaces.
These funds have been frozen in Swiss banks since 2011.
The visit came a week after the final ruling of the appellate court in the trial of ousted president Hosni Mubark and his sons Gamal and Alaa, who were charged with embezzling public funds totalling EGP 125m.
The Swiss embassy in Cairo issued a statement Wednesday announcing that Lauber will attempt to form channels of cooperation between Egypt and Switzerland to restore the looted public funds.
Lauber will hold a press conference on Saturday evening before leaving the country.
In May, the Cairo Criminal Court sentenced the Mubaraks to three years in prison without parole. They were accused of embezzling EGP 125m in public funds allocated for the renovation of presidential palaces to upgrade family properties. They were required to pay a fine of EGP 125,779, and were ordered to return EGP 21.1m.
Following the popular uprising that ousted Mubarak in 2011, the Swiss government announced a provisional freeze of Mubarak’s funds. It later announced in May of the same year that it had frozen CHF 410m (over EGP 3.3bn) in assets held by Mubarak and 14 Egyptian officials from the former regime.
In late 2013, the Swiss government announced that it had traced additional funds to Mubarak and would maintain its decision to freeze the now CHF 700m (over EGP 5.7bn), state-run newspaper Al-Ahram reported.
The Swiss authorities have been in contact with the Egyptian government in the case since the freezing of the funds in 2011.
