Attorney General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud has referred the sons of deposed President Hosni Mubarak and seven others to criminal court on illicit gains charges over the sale of the Al-Watany Bank of Egypt, a listed bank.
The defendants allegedly obtained more than LE2.5 billion according to a prosecution statement published by state-run news agency MENA.
The defendants include Alaa and Gamal Mubarak, as well as Hassan Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, CEO of EFG Hermes, and son of veteran journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal.*
State-owned Al-Ahram newspaper said on its website Wednesday that the charges include manipulation of stock market shares to achieve illicit profits for their companies.
In November 2007, the National Bank of Kuwait — which is owned by the Kharafi, Bahr and Saqr Kuwaiti families — acquired Al-Watany Bank of Egypt, which was mostly privately owned, in an LE5.689 billion deal described as one of the largest bank acquisitions in the Egyptian market.
A prosecution spokesperson said the defendants broke the law, as well as capital market and central bank provisions, by agreeing to control the bank’s capital and creating a share for themselves by burying and then selling the largest proportion of small investors’ shares without disclosing this to the stock exchange.
The spokesperson said the defendants concealed their identity during the bank share dealings through cluster companies and personal closed investment funds located in Cyprus and some of the British Isles, and that they transferred their profits abroad.
*Correction: This article previously stated that Hassan Heikal was the chariman of the board of directors at Citadel Investment. It has been corrected to identify him as the the CEO of EFG Hermes. Ahmed Heikal is Chairman and Founder of Citadel Capital.
