Court orders release of Gamal and Alaa Mubarak

The Cairo Criminal Court ordered the release of Gamal and Alaa Mubarak in what has become known as the “Mubarak Mansions” case, state-owned Al-Ahram reported.  

On Monday, the court accepted Hosni Mubarak’s sons' appeal that their time served in prison covered the sentences handed down to them in the case.

In May 2014, Mubarak and his sons were convicted of embezzling over LE100 million. Mubarak was sentenced to three years in prison, and his sons four.

The defendants were also fined LE125 million and were ordered to return another LE21 million to the state. The Mubaraks had previously returned LE104 million of the embezzled money in a show of good faith.

In January 2015, the Cairo Court of Cassation ordered a retrial and Alaa and Gamal were released that month, after serving the maximum period for detention awaiting trial.

Later in May, the Cairo Criminal Court upheld Mubarak’s three-year sentence but reduced his sons’ from four to three years.

Mada Masr’s investigation showed that Mubarak, the former first lady, Gamal and Alaa and their wives routinely renovated their private estates or bought furniture and fraudulently listed their expenses as maintenance for communication towers, which are set up around the country to provide secure phone lines for the president and paid for by the state.

Alaa and Gamal are still facing trial, along with seven others, on charges of insider stock trading, squandering public money, harming the economy and destroying the country’s banking system. The defendants were charged with obtaining LE2.5 billion through corruption related to the sale of Al-Watany Bank in 2007. 

They were also involved with Mubarak in the Sharm al-Sheikh villas case where they were accused of illegal possession of five villas worth an estimated LE39 million. The villas were obtained in exchange for granting fugitive businessman Hussein Salem 2 million square meters of land in Sinai.

However, the charges were dropped in November 2014 as the statute of limitations had expired.