The Cairo Criminal Court issued a court order Sunday to freeze the assets of Habib Al-Adly and his family and banned Al-Adly, the former interior minister who has been embroiled in embezzlement charges since 2012, from traveling abroad.
Al-Adly is charged with abusing public office to approve decisions that reward officers and senior officials from the budget of the Interior Ministry. He is currently standing trial with at least 12 other former ministry officials and is accused of embezzling EGP 530m. The court decided to adjourn the trial until 28 February to review further documents.
When the trial, known as the Ministry of Interior Corruption case, began in 2012, more than 100 ministry officials were charged with corruption, all accused of accepting bribes. Due to a lack of criminal evidence, the court dismissed charges against at least 80 defendants in January 2016, lifting the ban that prohibited them from traveling and returning assets that had been frozen.
Approximately EGP 178m of the total EGP 2bn the court prosecutor alleged was embezzled has been returned to the state. According to the court investigations, those that have returned embezzled funds include: major-general Mohsen Al-Faham, former investigations chief at the national security apparatus who returned EGP 37,540, 313 and Ismail Al-Shaer, Al-Adly’s former deputy, who returned EGP 10,296,417.
