Hosni Mubarak's jail sentence upheld

CAIRO, Jan 9: An Egyptian court on Saturday rejected an appeal by ousted president Hosni Mubarak and his two sons against their three-year prison sentences on charges of embezzling public funds.

The former president and his two sons — Gamal and Alaa Mubarak — were appealing their convictions in the case known in the local media as the “presidential palaces case”, which saw them charged with embezzling 125 million Egyptian pounds (about $15 million) of public funds origilly allocated for the upkeep of presidential buildings, Al Ahram daily reported. In a verdict in May 2014 the trio were fined 125 million Egyptian pounds and required to pay an additiol 21 million Egyptian pounds to the state. At the time, Mubarak received a three-year prison sentence in the case, and his sons four-year sentences each, but it was reduced to three-years after appeal.  The three-year jail sentences have already been served during the trio’s time in pre-trial detention, and given this Gamal and Alaa walked free in May 2015. Their father returned to Maadi Military Hospital where he currently stays. According to Egyptian law, pre-trial detention is counted as time served towards any possible sentence. This is the fil appeal in the presidential palaces case. In November 2014, a court threw out a case in which the deposed autocrat was accused of complicity in murdering protesters during the January 2011 protests that led to his downfall. (IANS)