Hosni Mubarak, sons lose appeal against jail sentence for corruption

Egypt’s deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak and his sons lose an appeal against a three-year prison sentence handed down to them for corruption.

The three-year sentence was issued on May 9, 2015. Egypt’s top court of appeals rejected the request 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 funds amounted to 125 million Egyptian pounds (USD 16 million, 14.7 million euros). The three individuals were fined the same amount and an extra 21 million pounds.

The length of Mubarak’s detention is still not clear. The two sons were released in October last year with time served taken into account.

The former Egyptian dictator also faced other charges than the embezzlement, including ordering the deadly crackdown on the popular uprising of 2011 that led to his ouster. That charge was dropped in a separate trial. Seven of Mubarak’s commanders were also exonerated in relation to the deaths of some of the roughly 800 demonstrators killed during the uprising.

Egypt has been struck by violence ever since Mohamed Morsi, the country’s first democratically-elected president, was toppled by the military under the leadership of then head of the armed forces Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in July 2013.

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