(AFP Photo)
A judicial delegation heads to the Qatari capital Doha to take part in a workshop on repatriating Egyptian funds smuggled to foreign countries.
The delegation will attend a workshop running from Tuesday to Thursday titled “Internal coordination to achieve the best ways to restore smuggled Egyptian funds”, state-run news agency MENA reported.
Several committees have been formed to restore stolen Egyptian funds and the delegation will review their efforts to do so.
Motaz Salah El-Din, who heads a popular campaign to restore the stolen assets, said he does not believe there is any political will to restore the funds. The campaign has coordinators in Spain, the US and Canada, the UK, Switzerland, France, Austria, Eastern Europe, and the Gulf.
The campaign tries to restore funds by pressuring authorities to freeze assets of former regime members.
He said that some of the attempts to restore the assets are going well while others are not going so well.
The assets of former regime members, including ousted President Hosni Mubarak, in Spain, Switzerland, and the UK have been frozen. There are varying estimates regarding the value of Egyptian funds smuggled abroad, but there is no total figure as of yet.
In November 2012, an official in the Egyptian prosecution said Egypt had managed to restore EGP 11bn in stolen assets.
The return of the rest of the assets is dependent on the outcome of the trials of former regime members.
Members of the Egyptian prosecution met with a British delegation in Cairo from 16-18 March to discuss cooperation on restoring Egyptian funds. The British Ambassador to Egypt told the Egyptian Prosecutor General Tala’at Abdallah that the British government will use all available information and resources to help Egypt repatriate the funds.
The information is expected to help with investigations against former regime members on charges of corruption and money laundering.
Assistant to the Prosecutor General Kamel Girgis said Swiss officials have completed a draft law to ease procedures of restoring stolen funds to countries including Egypt.
