Court history of former Interior Minister Habib Al-Adly

CAIRO – 10 January 2018: Egypt’s Court of Cassation will review on Thursday former Mubarak-era Interior Minister Habib al-Adly’s appeal against a seven-year prison sentence on charges of seizure of public money allocated to the treasury of the Ministry of Interior.

On April 15, 2017, a Cairo court sentenced Adly to seven years in prison over charges of embezzling public funds belonging to the Ministry of the Interior. Adly and two other officials involved in the case were ordered to refund LE 195 million ($11 million) and were fined another LE 195 million. However, Adly fled house arrest to avoid serving the jail sentence.

On May 17, 2017, Cairo’s Criminal Court rejected the appeal filed by Adly’s lawyer, Farid el-Deeb, against the seven-year sentence. Adly was not present at the court session, as he was receiving medical treatment at a hospital, according to Deeb’s statement to the jury.

Later in June, Adly filed an appeal before the Court of Cassation against the seven-year prison sentence.

On December 5, 2017, Adly was arrested to serve his seven-year prison sentence after being on the run for about 232 days.

Adly served as Minister of Interior from 1997 to 2011 under former President Mubarak, until he was removed from office.

The former Mubarak-era minister had a long-running streak in courts after facing multiple charges ranging from corruption to the deliberate murder of demonstrators.

In 2014, he was acquitted along with six of his aides over charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during the January 25 Revolution in 2011.

Adly was acquitted in all cases charged against him over the last few years, except for one case, in which he was sentenced to three years of imprisonment on charges of exploiting soldiers and forcing them to carry out construction labor on lands illegally owned by the government. The case is publicly known as the "forced labor case”. He was released after the end of his sentence.