Hosni Mubarak's former agriculture minister Amin Abaza and businessman Amr El-Mansy were sentenced to 3 years imprisonment by a court in Ismailia Wednesday for engaging in corrupt land deals.

Abaza was charged with facilitating the illegal acquisition by El-Mansy of 11,500 fedans (11,937 acres) of state-owned land in Ismailia and Sinai governorates.

Defence lawyers said the charges were trumped up in order to satisfy public opinion after the January 25 Revolution.

Abaza is the latest Mubarak-era minister to be convicted of corruption after former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, former interior minister Habib El-Adly, former tourism minister Zohair Garana, former oil minister Sameh Fahmy, former housing minister Ahmed Maghrabi, former finance minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali and former trade minister Mohamed Rashid.

The case was referred to trial in August 2011.