The UK will apply its own legal procedures to return money smuggled abroad by Mubarak regime figures, Alistair Burt, parliamentary undersecretary of state at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, said Monday.
Cairo has so far failed to retrieve any funds smuggled abroad since the 25 January revolution broke out early last year.
The UK has frozen a number of Egyptian-owned assets, Burt told reporters at the UK Embassy in Cairo, adding that the stolen funds will be returned through legal measures conducted by British courts.
Burt said British legal authorities will be able to return the stolen money once provided with the necessary information.
Burt said the issue of extraditing former Finance Minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali is not currently under discussion, noting that it is separate from the stolen funds issue.
On Sunday, Illicit Gains Authority head Assem al-Gohary, who also chairs a committee tasked with repatriating stolen funds, said in a statement that Cairo had formally asked European Union countries to continue freezing funds belonging to deposed President Hosni Mubarak, his two sons and other members of his regime.
Shortly after Mubarak was forced to step down, the attorney general ordered the foreign assets of the deposed president and his family to be frozen.
Last year, Swiss authorities froze Mubarak’s assets, acting more quickly than when the EU froze the assets of another ousted North African ruler, former Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
Translated from MENA
