Egyptian Court Upholds Corrupt PEP Verdict

CAIRO — An Egyptian court on Saturday reconfirmed a corruption conviction of former President Hosni Mubarak amid signals from the authorities that he may soon be released.

The court on Saturday reissued a three-year sentence for Mr. Mubarak that had been originally handed down in May 2014 but temporarily set aside in January when an appeals court ordered a retrial.

After the verdict, Egyptian state news also reported that prosecutors were calculating whether Mr. Mubarak had now served enough time to warrant his release. He has already spent more than three years in detention since his overthrow in 2011.

If confirmed, Mr. Mubarak’s release would be the latest erosion of the charges, convictions and sentences that the authorities had hurled against him after the 2011 uprising. All had been overturned or sent back for retrial since the military takeover led by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in 2013, which appears to have sapped the political will to punish the former president. Legal experts have said for months that Mr. Mubarak should have been eligible for release because there was no longer any legal justification for his detention.

The renewed conviction on Saturday means that Mr. Mubarak’s record will not be cleared completely. The court found Mr. Mubarak, 87, and his two sons, Gamal, 51, and Alaa, 53, guilty of diverting millions of dollars in public expenditures for their personal use. It had been the last verdict still standing against them when the appeals court in January sent the decision back for the retrial that resulted in the new ruling.

A three-judge panel led by Judge Hassan Hassanein on Saturday reduced the sentence against the Mubarak sons from four years to three. All three Mubaraks have spent more than three years in detention since 2011, so the sentences should no longer hold them. Lawyers for the family said they would continue to appeal.

It also remained possible that the authorities might seek some new legal or other arrangement to keep the Mubaraks off the streets and out of view. Mr. Mubarak has remained in the same military hospital, where he had been held for much of his detention, even though it has been unclear for months whether he was there voluntarily, by agreement with Mr. Sisi or under some legal authority.

In contrast with their father, Gamal and Alaa were released in Januarywhen their convictions were temporarily overturned. Egyptian state media also said on Saturday that the police were rearresting both sons while prosecutors calculated whether they had served all their time.

Gamal and Alaa had initially stayed quiet after their release but recently made headlines that may have caught the attention of prosecutors or others around Mr. Sisi. In a kind of public debut in April, the two brothers attended a public funeral for the mother of a journalist, Mustafa Bakri. Then this month a newspaper published photographs that appeared to show Gamal Mubarak taking his daughters to the pyramids, setting off a frenzy of outrage, speculation and gossip — even though the date of the photographs was unconfirmed.

“Security apparatuses have decided to take into custody the former president, Hosni Mubarak and his sons Gamal and Alaa until the custody period is determined,” reported Al Ahram, the flagship state newspaper.

Gamal and Alaa are still facing criminal charges in an insider trading case.

Gamal, a former leading figure in Hosni Mubarak’s ruling party, was once expected to run for president as his father’s successor. Any potential revival of his political career is now far-fetched, especially with Mr. Sisi in power. But under Egyptian law the corruption conviction would also disqualify Gamal from seeking elected office.

The hearing on Saturday was held at the same auditorium of a Cairo police academy that was the venue for Mr. Mubarak’s earlier trials and the more recent trials of ousted President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Mr. Mubarak arrived by helicopter and wore a dark suit instead of the casual clothes he has sometimes worn in the past. Some supporters, including some wearing T-shirts with pictures of his face on them, were allowed into the courtroom to wait for him.

Some waved and blew kisses when Mr. Mubarak was wheeled into the room on a stretcher.

“Long live Egypt, long live Mubarak,” some chanted when the verdict was announced.

Both his sons were present with him in the metal cage that customarily holds defendants in Egyptian criminal cases. Neither father nor sons betrayed any response to the ruling.

There was also little sign of a strong public reaction either to the renewal of the former president’s conviction or to the possibility of his release.

In November, thousands braved draconian penalties for unauthorized public assembly to protest in Tahrir Square against the dismissal of charges against Mr. Mubarak for directing the killing of hundreds of protesters at the end of his rule. At least two were killed when the police broke up the protest. But the appeals court decision in January overturning his earlier corruption conviction aroused no such protest.

“Before and after the verdict, we know with certainty that Mubarak and his sons and his regime are corrupt, and thieves,” Gamal Eid, a human rights advocate, wrote on Twitter on Saturday. “But he is also a criminal and a murderer, and he must be punished for the killings.”

Mr. Mubarak has made few public statements. In a telephone interview with a supportive television talk show host after his conviction for killing protesters was overturned, Mr. Mubarak suggested that he had been the victim of a conspiracy.

He turned 87 on May 4, and dozens gathered outside the hospital to cheer for him. Mr. Mubarak appeared at a window and waved, state media reported.

SOURCE: New York Time 9 May 2015