The Cairo Criminal Court is convening on 27 July for the first session of the new trial of Mohamed Ibrahim Suleiman, former Housing Minister, Samir Abdel Qawy, chairman of the Sixth of October Company for Agricultural Reclamation and Reconstruction, and three officials from the New Urban Communities Authority, all on charges of profiteering and deliberately squandering LE28 million in public funds.
A statement from the Cairo Court of Appeals, which organizes the courts and circuits that oversee judicial cases, explained that prosecutors were charging the defendants, among other things, with selling land for less than market value in the Green Belt area, which surrounds the new satellite cities of Six October and Ten Ramadan.
Suleiman is standing trial in several cases, in which he is accused of corruption and misuse of public funds during his tenure as Housing Minister. Suleiman was indicted in several cases, but then appealed those verdicts and demanded retrials.
Sources from the Illicit Gains Authority (IGA) said on Sunday that the authorities were referring lawsuits against members of the former regime to the appropriate courts within the next few days.
Since the revolution, the IGA, affiliated with the Justice Ministry, has referred several lawsuits to the courts, most notably that of former president Hosni Mubarak, former parliament speaker Ahmed Fathi Sorour, former Shura Council speaker Safwat al-Sherif, and a number of other former ministers and officials.
Edited translation from MENA
