Court clears Mubarak-era housing minister of corruption charges

The Court of Cassation cleared former Housing Minister Ahmed al-Maghrabi on Saturday of all corruption charges leveled against him.

According to judicial sources cited in local media outlets, the verdict against the business tycoon — the latest member of the Mubarak regime to be acquitted — is final and cannot be further appealed.

Maghrabi’s acquittal comes just two days after Mubarak’s former tourism minister (serving from 2006 -2011) Zuhair Garana was similarly acquitted of corruption charges.

The charges filed against Maghrabi and business associate Ahmed Adada just after Mubarak was ousted in 2011, were in relation to the seizing of state-owned land and the squandering of LE25 million of public assets. However, a court acquitted both Maghrabi and his business partner of these charges in April 2013.

According to Reuters and Egypt’s privately owned ONA news agency, this acquittal follows a settlement back in 2013, whereby Adada agreed to return the piece of land in question to state authorities.

It is reportedly on this basis that the Court of Cassation rejected the appeal filed by prosecutors challenging the 2013 verdict of acquittal.

The 70-year-old US-educated Maghrabi was a member of Mubarak’s then-ruling National Democratic Party, who rose in rank to become the minister of tourism from 2004 to 2005.

He served as minister of housing from 2005 to 2011, until he was removed from power, along with the government of then-Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, in Mubarak’s last cabinet shuffle of January 29, 2011.

However, since the popular uprising of 2011, none of Mubarak’s ministers or inner circle has remained behind bars.

Hosni Mubarak remains in the Maadi Armed Forces Hospital while awaiting one final re-trial in November before the Court of Cassation, on charges of ordering the killing of over 800 opposition protesters.

Late last year, the Court of Cassation had acquitted Mubarak’s interior minister and his top police chiefs were all acquitted from these same charges.

One day after the fourth anniversary of the 2011 uprising, both of Mubarak’s sons Gamal and Alaa were released from detention on January 26, 2015.

Contrasting with these verdicts, Mubarak’s successor, Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, who was elected in 2012, received the death sentence, along with several other members of the Muslim Brotherhood, on charges of breaking out of prison during the 2011 uprising.

On Saturday, the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper reported that an appellate court had upheld a sentence against Morsi’s son, Abdallah, of one-year imprisonment, on charges of possessing two joints of hashish.