The Spanish Constitutional Court has suspended the extradition of fugitive business tycoon Hussein Salem to Egypt until his request for asylum is answered, the state-run MENA news agency reported on Monday.
The court obliged Salem to go to the police station every morning and prove that he is staying at his home in Madrid.
Prior to this, a Spanish national court had ordered the handover of Salem on the grounds that he exploits his Spanish nationality to evade extradition.
Salem was arrested in Madrid on 14 June of last year, 45 days before the start of the trial of former President Hosni Mubarak on charges of killing protesters and of corruption.
Salem was accused of granting Mubarak and his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, luxury villas in Sharm el-Sheikh for free, although they are valued at more than 5 million euros, in return for Mubarak granting him more than 2 million square meters of land in the same area.
The Cairo Criminal Court acquitted the defendants on 2 June, saying the sales in question occurred more than 10 years ago, which is beyond the statute of limitations for non-state employees to be prosecuted on corruption charges, according to the Penal Code.
A close friend of Hosni Mubarak, Salem fled to Spain during Egypt’s 25 January uprising last year. After Mubarak's resignation, Egypt called on Interpol to arrest Salem for bribery, abuse of power and squandering public money. He was then monitored by the Spanish government, which found evidence implicating him in money laundering in Spain.
On 10 October 2011, the Spanish secretary of state announced that Spain intended to hand Salem, who has both Egyptian and Spanish citizenship, to the Egyptian authorities for trial on charges of corruption.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
