Why judge gave Egypt's Hosni Mubarak three years in prison

In a corruption trial, Egypt's deposed leader Hosni Mubarak and his two sons were sentenced to three years in prison and fined $16.3 million.

|
(AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, seated, and his two sons Gamal Mubarak, left, and Alaa Mubarak, right, attend the verdict of the corruption case dubbed by the Egyptian media as the "presidential palaces" affair concerning charges that Mubarak and his two sons embezzled millions of dollars' worth of state funds over the course of a decade in a courtroom in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, May 9, 2015. Egypt's deposed leader Hosni Mubarak and his two sons were sentenced Saturday to three years in prison and a fine in a retrial on corruption charges they faced earlier. It wasn't immediately clear whether it will include time he's already served since his country's 2011 revolt.

Egypt's deposed leader Hosni Mubarak and his two sons were sentenced Saturday to three years in prison and a fine in a retrial on corruption charges they faced earlier. It wasn't immediately clear whether it will include time he's already served since his country's 2011 revolt.

The corruption case — dubbed by the Egyptian media as the "presidential palaces" affair — concerns charges that Mubarak and his two sons embezzled millions of dollars' worth of state funds over the course of a decade. The funds were meant to pay for renovating and maintaining presidential palaces but were instead allegedly spent on upgrading the family's private residences.

Mubarak was sentenced to three years, his sons to four in the case. He later appealed, sparking the retrial.

Supporters shouted in anger as Judge Hassan Hassanin announced his verdict.

"We believe in you! We trust Mubarak!" they yelled, as some women there began crying. Some wore T-shirts emblazoned with the former leader's face, and waved and blew kisses as the 87-year-old autocrat entered the courtroom.

Mubarak, wearing sunglasses, had no visible reaction to the verdict. His two sons, Gamal and Alaa, wore suits to the hearing and also had no reaction.

A lawyer for Mubarak said the judge's decision can be appealed.

The verdict included a 125 million Egyptian pound ($16.3 million) fine to be paid among the three men, as well as the return of 21 million Egyptian pounds ($2.7 million) they embezzled. After the hearing, judicial and security officials said those amounts already had been paid by the Mubaraks following their first trial.

Mubarak returned to the military hospital in Cairo where he's been held amid his trials. Officials said his two sons were taken to Torah Prison as authorities determine whether their time served would cover for the sentences Saturday.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to speak to journalists.

Many Egyptians view Gamal, Mubarak's one-time heir apparent, and his brother, wealthy businessman Alaa, as key pillars of an autocratic and corrupt administration that struck an alliance with the mega-wealthy at the expense of the poor. Although father and son denied succession plans, that perception, along with corruption, police brutality and poverty, fueled the 2011 revolt.

Images of Gamal making public appearances have circulated on social media, first at a funeral last month and then last weekend with his family at the Giza pyramids. Mubarak

The rise of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who has vowed stability after four years of turmoil and taken a tough line against dissent, has encouraged Mubarak supporters and upended the depiction of the revolution in the media, where activists now are most often cast as troublemakers or foreign agents. Hundreds of the young activists from the 2011 revolt now are either languishing in prison on charges of breaking a protest law or have left the country.

Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, Mubarak's freely elected successor, himself was overthrown by the military led by el-Sissi in 2013. Saturday's hearing, at a police academy on the outskirts of Cairo, took place in the same courtroom where Morsi was sentenced to 20 years in prison last month for using force against protesters.

___

Associated Press writers Merrit Kennedy and Maamoun Youssef contributed to this report.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Why judge gave Egypt's Hosni Mubarak three years in prison
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2015/0509/Why-judge-gave-Egypt-s-Hosni-Mubarak-three-years-in-prison
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe