Egypt ex-minister gets 5 years for fraud

A Cairo criminal court on Thursday sentenced Egypt's former housing minister Ahmed al-Maghrabi to five years in prison on corruption charges, a judicial source told AFP. Judge Assem Abdul Hamid Nasr found Maghrabi guilty of the illegal acquisition of public property and wasting public funds worth 73 million Egyptian pounds (around $12 million), the source said. Prominent businessman Munir Ghabbour was also found guilty in the same case and sentenced to one year in prison. Maghrabi is said to have approved Ghabbour's illegal acquisition of around 18 acres of public land for well below the market price. Maghrabi is the third senior minister from the regime of ousted president Hosni Mubarak to be sentenced, in a sweeping probe against corruption that has particularly hit the lucrative tourism and construction industries. Earlier this month, former tourism minister Zuheir Garranah was also jailed for five years for wasting public funds worth $51 million, after authorising the sale of state-owned land for below the market price. Once feared Egyptian interior minister Habib al-Adly was also jailed for 12 years for corruption. Adly, who ran Mubarak's security services for more than a decade before the strongman's February overthrow in the face of 18 days of mass protests, was convicted of money-laundering and illicitly enriching himself while in office. He faces a second trial on charges of ordering police to shoot protesters, and a third alongside the former premier and finance minister over a deal with a German firm to supply Egypt with licence plates at allegedly inflated prices. The trial of allegedly corrupt officials, including Mubarak, was a key demand of protesters. On Tuesday Mubarak was referred to a criminal court along with his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, on charges of ordering the killings of anti-regime protesters and graft. The prosecutor's office said that Mubarak and his sons have been charged with "premeditated murder of some participants in the peaceful protests of the January 25 revolution." The murder charges may lead to a death sentence if Mubarak is found guilty, the justice minister said earlier this month. Mubarak and his sons have also been charged with profiteering and using their positions for illicit gain and squandering public funds, the prosecutor's office added. The former president is currently in police custody in a hospital in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. The veteran leader, who ruled Egypt for three decades, was hospitalised in mid-April after reportedly suffering a heart attack during questioning. His sons, along with dozens of officials and businessmen associated with the former regime, are being detained in Cairo's notorious Tora prison which housed political dissidents during the Mubarak era.