2 sons of Mubarak acquitted

EGYPT An Egyptian court acquitted on Saturday Alaa and Gamal Mubarak, the sons of ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Hosni Mubarak, in a corruption case, staterun Ahram Online news website reported.

According to Ahram Online, the Cairo Criminal Court acquitted Alaa and Gamal, and others, in the case known in the media as “manipulating the stock exchange.”

The defendants faced charges of violating the rules of

Egypt’s stock exchange market and the Central Bank of Egypt.

They were also accused of making illegal profits through the Cyprusbased company in their control which acquired a majority of shares in several banks on their behalf to escape the monitor of the stock market.

The prosecution said the defendants made illegal financial gains of over 493 million Egyptian pounds (about 31.7 million US dollars) by allowing a Cyprus company to get a national bank’s shares through hidden deals. In September 2018, a Cairo criminal court ordered the release on bail of the two sons of toppled president Mubarak, just five days after their arrest over charges in the same case.

After Mubarak’s ouster in early 2011, Gamal and Alaa were in custody for a number of alleged corruption crimes. Along with their father, they were sentenced in May 2015 to three years in jail for embezzling funds meant for maintaining presidential palaces. They have been free for the past four years since their sentences were covered by the years they had already served in provisional detention and they were released in the same year.

In March 2017, Mubarak was acquitted of the charges of killing protesters during the 2011 uprising that led to his ouster.

(Xinhua)