Mubarak and sons to be retried in 'presidential palaces' case
Ahram Online, , Tuesday 13 Jan 2015
Defence lawyer says his clients should be released because they have already served the maximum detention period in the case


Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his two sons will be retried in the 'presidential palaces' embezzlement case after the Cassation Court accepted their appeal on Tuesday.

Mubarak, his sons Gamal and Alaa, and four new defendants were convicted last May of embezzling LE125 million ($17.9 million)originally allocated for developing communications centres at the presidency, in order to establish and develop their private buildings.

The former president received a three-year prison sentence and his sons four-year sentences.

They were also sentenced to pay a fine of LE21,197,000 ($2.96 million) and return LE125 million ($17.9 million).

Mubarak's lawyer Farid El-Deeb will submit a request and a complaint to the General Prosecution to calculate the pre-trial detention time for Alaa and Gamal Mubarak so they can be released.

The former president has served the maximum detention period, exceeding it by more than a week, according to El-Deeb.

Accepting the appeal means that Hosni Mubarak will be released because he is not being tried in any other case, according to a judiciary source.

He has been serving the three-year sentence since May 2014, but he began his pre-trial detention in April 2011, which continued until August 2013, when he was transferred to house arrest.

Criminal law professors say under Egypt's criminal proceedings law, the pre-trial detention time is regarded as time served and will be deducted from the sentence given to the defendant.

Egypt's top prosecutor, Hisham Barakat, accepted last week grounds for appeal in the trial of Mubarak for the killing of protesters, a charge which was dismissed by a court ruling in November.

In November, a Cairo Criminal Court dropped charges of killing protesters against Mubarak, saying it lacked the legal basis to bring a criminal case.

https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/120169.aspx