A Cairo court sentenced Egypt’s deposed
autocrat Hosni Mubarak and his two sons to three years in prison on
corruption charges on Saturday — a punishment that authorities may deem
as having already been served but one which, if it withstands appeal,
would officially establish Mubark as a convicted criminal years after
the 2011 popular uprising that toppled him.
The Associated Press reports
that the case — dubbed the “presidential palaces” affair by the Egyptian
media — was a retrial charging that Mubarak and sons embezzled millions
of dollars’ worth of state funds over the course of a decade, diverting
money meant to pay for renovating and maintaining presidential palaces
to instead upgrade their private residences.
Mubarak had originally been sentenced to
three years over the matter, and his sons to four, but they later
appealed, sparking the retrial. As Egypt’s political tides shifted in
the wake of his overthrow, he had been convicted of bearing
responsibility for the deaths of protesters but was later acquitted,
although that ruling now faces an appeal by prosecutors.
Inside the courtroom at a sprawling,
locked-down police academy on the outskirts of Cairo, a dozen Mubarak
supporters shouted in anger as Judge Hassan Hassanin announced his
verdict, standing up on benches and pumping their fists into the air.
The three defendants stood in a courtroom cage soundproofed with a glass
enclosure.
“We believe in you! We trust Mubarak!”
supporters yelled, as some women began crying. Others wearing T-shirts
emblazoned with the former leader’s face waved and blew kisses when the
87-year-old entered the courtroom. A seated, suited Mubarak, wearing
sunglasses and flanked by sons Gamal and Alaa, had no visible reaction
to the verdict, which their lawyers say can be appealed
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