Where is Al-Adly now after Court of Cassation ruling?

CAIRO – 15 January 2018: Following the acceptance of former Mubarak-era Interior Minister Habib al-Adly’s appeal against a seven-year prison on Thursday, Adly was set free from detention.

Adly’s lawyer, Farid el-Deeb stated that Adly left Tora prison after the completion of the legal procedures and he is currently free at his home in Cairo.

The Court of Cassation immediately ordered a re-trial over charges relating to corruption and consequently the Cairo Court of Appeals set a new date for the reconsideration of their first retrial hearings.

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 another 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 Mubarak was removed from office.

The former minister had a long-running streak in record 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.

Following the April 2017 ruling, al-Adly disappeared until he was arrested in December by security forces.