Former interior minister Habib El-Adly in one of his trials (Photo: Reuters)
Egypt's security forces detained fugitive former Mubarak-era interior minister Habib El-Adly after locating him on Tuesday, state-run MENA news agency reported.
In May the former minister lost an appeal due to failure to appear in court while challenging a seven-year prison sentence handed down in the "interior ministry corruption" case, and has remained in hiding until his capture this week.
On 15 April, El-Adly was tried along with 12 former interior ministry officials who received prison sentences of between three and seven years. Charges were dropped against two defendants who died during the period of the trial.
El-Adly fled after the April ruling, and both the ministry and the prosecution have made efforts to arrest him so that he can begin his sentence. However their efforts were unsuccessful, so the ministry notified the central Cairo prosecution office that the former minister was to be considered a fugitive.
El-Adly's lawyer Fareed El-Deeb appealed against the criminal court's ruling. The Court of Cassation set 11 January 2018 to begin the appeal and to decide whether to accept it or to uphold the original criminal court ruling.
The long-serving former minister faced several trials following the ouster President Mubarak in the January 2011 revolution, including for the killing of protesters and the cutting of telecommunications, but he was acquitted in all of the cases except for two.
El-Adly was sentenced to three years in prison in the first trial in 2013, known in the media as “the conscripts' enslavement case." The Cassation Court upheld that ruling in February 2014.
In the second trial, known in the media as the "corruption of the ministry interior" case, he was sentenced 7 years in prison.
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