UPDATE: Court to retry Adly over stealing public funds in March

CAIRO - 7 February 2019: Giza Criminal Court ordered the retrial of Habib al-Adly, Egypt's Interior Minister under former President Hosni Mubarak, and a number of the top officials of the ministry over charges of embezzling public funds on March, 5.

The court said that some points in the technical reports on the case requires the court to discuss them with experts.

Adly and his co-defendants are charged with siphoning off over LE 2 billion of public funds in the period between 2000 and 2011.

During the session, representative of the General Prosecution commented on Adly's advocacy's claim in the previous sessions that the ex-interior minister was unaware of the financial affairs, saying that it cannot be true. The representative said that Adly, as the number one official in the ministry who was responsible for the security of the ministry at the time, cannot be unaware of incidents taking place.

The Court of Cassation had earlier revoked a 7-year jail sentence against Adly and ordered retrial.The 7-year sentence was issued against Adly and two other defendants by the Cairo Criminal Court in April 2017. The court also sentenced six defendants to five years in prison, and two others to three-year imprisonment.

The court subsequently ordered compelling Adly and two defendants in the case to refund LE 195,936,000 ($10.9 million). Adly and nine defendants also had to refund 529,000,000 ($29.5 million), according to an earlier ruling of the court.