Prosecutor General Talaat Abdallah ordered the detainment of former President Hosni Mubarak for 15 days pending investigations conducted by the State Security Prosecution on charges of seizing and facilitating the seizure of public money.
Investigations suggested that Mubarak, his wife and his sons seized money allocated for expenditure on presidential palaces.
A judicial source from the Public Prosecution said Sunday that the decision to detain Mubarak would go into effect once the term for his other detention period ends.
A court previously sentenced Mubarak to 25 years in prison, but he later appealed his sentence and was granted a retrial. Egyptian law permits him to only serve up to two years in custody pending trials and investigations. But the new charges allow authorities to keep Mubarak in custody despite the end of that period.
The Administrative Prosecution said in a statement that all the sums Mubarak and his sons seized total nearly LE1.1 billion, and that they were collected during the last decade.
The Administrative Control Authority said Mubarak abused his powers to take public money, claiming fake contracting work at the presidential palace and instead using the money for their private villas.
Mubarak’s retrial is scheduled for 13 April, and he will appear in court along with his former interior minister, Habib al-Adly, on charges of killing protesters during the 2011 revolution. A court previously sentenced Mubarak and Adly to 25 years in prison, the longest prison sentence possible in Egyptian law, on the same charges.
Edited translation from MENA
