A court in Egypt has handed down a three-year prison term to the country’s deposed dictator, Hosni Mubarak, and his two sons over corruption charges.
According to reports on Saturday, the court found Mubarak and his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, guilty of embezzling public funds earmarked for the maintenance of Egypt’s presidential palaces.
The court sentenced each of the individuals to three years in prison, ordering them to reimburse USD 16.4 million, the exact sum of the embezzled money, the reports added.
It is not yet clear if the court’s ruling will take into account the time the three had already served in jail.
This is while they had been given the same verdict on the same charges, but were later acquitted by an appeals court.
Reports said that Mubarak’s lawyers may once again appeal the court’s ruling.
The new verdict came months after an Egyptian court dismissed a murder charge against Mubarak in connection with the killing of hundreds of protesters during the 2011 revolution that ended his decades-long rule.
Seven of Mubarak’s commanders were also exonerated in relation to the deaths of some of the roughly 800 demonstrators killed during the uprising.
In recent months, public attention has largely been diverted from Mubarak’s case by the trial of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically-elected president who was ousted by an army coup in July 2013, and is now on trial over several allegations.
FNR/HSN/SS