Egypt: Ousted President Mubarak Sentenced to Three Years for Embezzlement

Published: 21 May 2014

mubarak

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak

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 Egyptian courts have sentenced Hosni Mubarak, the 86-year-old ousted president of Egypt, to three years in prison for embezzling public funds.

He and his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, were also fined US$ 3 million and ordered to repay the US$ 17.6 million they were convicted of stealing, reports BBC.

Mubarak’s sons were sentenced to four years in prison each.

Courts ruled that Mubarak and his sons siphoned off money allocated for the maintenance of the presidential palace to renovate their family farm and private residences in Cairo and on the Red Sea.

"Instead of abiding by the Constitution and laws, he gave himself and his sons the freedom to take from public funds whatever they wanted to without oversight and without regard,” the judge ruled. 

One of the Mubaraks’ lawyers, Mostafa Ali As, said the Mubaraks would appeal. 

Mubarak is also on trial for abuse of power. In 2012 he was sentenced to life in prison for conspiring to kill protesters who overthrew him. However, courts upheld his appeal on technical grounds, and a retrial was ordered.

According to Reuters, the ex-president may serve a shorter sentence because he has already spent 23 months in jail since the 2011 uprising, until his sentence was commuted to house arrest last August.

Mubarak is currently under house arrest in a military hospital in Cairo.

The corruption conviction comes days before the May 26-27 presidential elections.  According to BBC, Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, Mubarak’s former military intelligence chief, is expected to win.

Sisi overthrew democratically elected Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi in July.