Egypt's Mubarak embezzlement trial adjourned till March 19

An Egyptian court adjourned on Wednesday the trial of the ousted president Hosni Mubarak and his two sons Alaa and Gamal over charges of looting funds allocated for maintaining the presidential palaces till March 19, official news agency MENA reported. The Mubaraks along with other four defendants were accused of embezzling 125 million Egyptian pounds (17.9 million U.S. dollars) set for the renovation of the presidential palaces. Mubarak and his two sons used the public money for building and decorating their private villas and offices, the prosecution said. The presiding judge, Osama Shaheen, ordered to postpone the trial for giving the lawyers time to study the case's documents, bills and CDs. He also ordered putting the new four defendants on the watch list and imposing a travel ban on them. During the first session of the trail last August, the court referred the case back to the prosecution to add new four defendants who were holding administrative position of the maintenance project. The four defendants were accused of facilitating Mubarak and his sons' seizure of public funds. From behind the dock, the ex-president and his two sons denied the accusations, "all the accusations mentioned by the general prosecution are baseless and have never happened," said Mubarak. Mubarak who ruled Egypt for nearly three decades and was toppled by nationwide protests in January 2011 revolt, faces also the retrial for the killing of protesters during that unrest. He was released from custody last August after exceeding the legal detention period, and settling another case against him by reimbursing gifts he received from state-run Ahram institutions. But Alaa and Gamal remain in jail on other corruption cases, such as exploiting the public funds for their own interests and exporting the natural gas to Israel with prices lower than the international market prices.