Egypt court acquits Mubarak-era ministers of corruption

Cairo: An Egyptian court acquitted a former prime minister and an ex-interior minister of corruption charges in a retrial on Tuesday, the latest reversal of verdicts against officials who served under strongman Hosni Mubarak.

Ex-premier Ahmad Nazif and former interior minister Habib Al Adly were sentenced to jail after Mubarak’s 2011 overthrow for a deal to import licence plates from German company Utsch at an exorbitant price.

An appeals court overturned the suspended sentence for Nazif and the five-year prison term for Al Adly, and ordered the retrial.

A representative of Utsch and a former finance minister under Mubarak were also sentenced in the first trial but were not included in the appeal because they were tried in their absence.

Several Mubarak-era officials, including the ousted strongman himself, have been acquitted in retrials on charges of corruption and involvement in the murder of anti-Mubarak protesters.

Meanwhile some protest leaders who spearheaded the 18-day revolt against Mubarak have been jailed on charges of illegal protest over the past year.

Al Adly was cleared of murder charges in a separate retrial with Mubarak in November that also saw charges against the former president dropped.

They had initially been sentenced to life in prison.

A lawyer for Al Adly said that the former interior minister faced one remaining trial which is expected to reach a verdict next month.

He has served his three-year sentence from another corruption trial, the lawyer Essam Al Batawy said.

Critics of President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi say Mubarak-era officials are making a comeback under his watch, an allegation the president has denied.

Al Sissi, the former army chief, won an election in May 2014, almost a year after toppling president Mohammad Mursi amid massive protests demanding the Islamist leader’s resignation.

The government has since unleashed a deadly crackdown on Mursi supporters and some secular dissidents.