Court upholds three-year sentence for Hosni Mubarak

Cairo, May 9:

An Egypt court on Saturday upheld a three-year jail sentence for former president Hosni Mubarak on graft charges.

The court reduced the sentence of his two sons, Gamal and Alaa, to three years — down from four — in the same case dealing with graft charges, Al Ahram reported.

The Cairo Appeal Court fined the three 125 million Egyptian pounds (about $16 million) and directed them to return 21 million Egyptian pounds to the state.

Since the trio had spent over three years in preventative detention in this and other cases, Mubarak and his two sons are expected to leave the court to return home.

Mubarak served preventative detention time from April 2011 to August 2013 awaiting trial in various cases, and was then transferred to the Maadi military hospital where he remained under house arrest.

According to Egyptian law, preventative detention time is counted as time served towards any possible sentence.

Last May, Mubarak and his sons were originally convicted of embezzling $17 million allocated for the upkeep of presidential palaces in order to develop their own private buildings.

In January, Alaa and Gamal Mubarak were released after serving the maximum period of preventative detention awaiting trials.

The two still face charges of corrupt stock exchange dealings in a separate case. (IANS)