Cairo: An Egyptian court on Saturday ordered the arrest of the two sons of former president Hosni Mubarak, nearly three years after their release from prison.
The arrest order was issued by the Cairo Criminal Court in connection with a long-standing case related to insider trading.
Alaa and Jamal Mubarak were attending the court session when the chief judge ordered their arrest and adjourned hearings until October 20, security sources said.
In response, the courtroom guards arrested them and handed them over to police to transport them to the Turah Prison south of Cairo, the sources added on condition of anonymity.
The court also ordered the arrest of three co-defendants in the same case. The five are charged with illegally collecting 500 million Egyptian pounds (Dh103 million)
In October 2015, the younger Mubaraks were released from jail after they served a three-year prison term each in a separate corruption case in which they were convicted of embezzling 125 million Egyptian pounds in public money originally allocated for renovating presidential palaces when their father was in power.
Their father was convicted in the same case, but was released after serving a three-year sentence.
Mubarak, now aged 90, has rarely been seen in public since March 2017 when Egypt’s top appeals court cleared him of charges of involvement in killing hundreds of protesters during the 2011 revolt that forced him to resign.
