FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

News

Mubarak Sentenced for Embezzlement Ahead of Egyptian Presidential Election

More than three years after his overthrow, the former dictator and his two sons received prison sentences for misusing millions of dollars.
Photo via Flickr

More than three years after the Arab Spring overthrow of Egypt autocrat Hosni Mubarak, his rule continues to be the focus of an ongoing legal saga.

On Wednesday, an Egyptian court sentenced the 83-year-old former president to three years in prison for embezzling millions of dollars of public money. Mubarak’s two sons Alaa and Gamal were tried alongside their father and received four-year sentences for the same charge. The three defendants were fined nearly $3 million and must repay $17.6 million that the court determined they had stolen.

Advertisement

The embezzled funds were earmarked for the renovation of presidential palaces. In a time-honored practice typical of dictators the world over, however, the money was instead used to upgrade family properties.

Mubarak assumed power in 1981 after Islamic militants assassinated his predecessor, Anwar Sadat. He remained in office through a series of sham elections coupled with the brutal suppression of his opponents.

It’s not yet clear whether time served by the three in prison will count toward their sentences. Mubarak was jailed for 23 months before being moved to house arrest at an army hospital; his sons have spent three years behind bars.

Mubarak will also face trial for abuse of power and ordering the killing of hundreds of protesters during the 18-day uprising in early 2011 that removed him from office.

The deposed dictator was arrested two months after his ouster. A number of conflicting rumors have since circulated about the state of his health, which his lawyers say is failing.

In 2012, a court sentenced him to life in prison after finding him guilty of involvement in the death of protesters. However, an appeal against his conviction was upheld early last year and a retrial ordered.

Wednesday’s ruling comes as Mubarak’s onetime intelligence chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi pursues the presidency in an election scheduled next week. He is expected to win by a landslide.

Maha Azzam, an associate fellow with Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Program, told VICE News that Sisi’s victory might bring a return of some Mubarak-era policies.

Advertisement

“I think what we’re seeing is not only a reassembling of the Mubarak regime,” she said. “Sisi is going to try and publicly distance himself from that. However, what he’s going to be reinstating is very much an authoritarian type of political system in which there will be very strong elements of the Mubarak regime as well as those that he sees as loyal to him, including a very strong military face. What we’ll see more of is a military-type regime, even more so than under Mubarak.”

A court sentenced Mansour University students to prison for protesting illegally and other charges.

With Mubarak’s penalty in mind, another sentence delivered on Wednesday highlights the peculiarity of Egypt’s justice system. A group of 24 students received between two and five years in prison after being found guilty of violating a draconian protest law, being members of a prohibited organization, destroying public property, and attacking police officers, according to local media.

The students were arrested last year on November 12 when security forces dispersed a protest at Mansoura University in support of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, who was ousted by the military last July. More than 70 protesters were injured in the dispersal, during which security forces used birdshot and tear gas.

The non-profit organization Human Rights Monitor (HRM) announced yesterday that it had filed a complaint with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention urging it to call for the release of three young women arrested with the protesters. HRM described the charges against them as “fabricated.” It said that they had been helping the wounded at the time of their arrest and suffered assault and mistreatment in custody.

Follow John Beck on Twitter: @JM_Beck

Photo via Flickr