Habib al-Adly, 8 others acquitted of embezzling public funds

CAIRO - 9 May 2019: Giza Criminal Court acquitted Habib al-Adly, Egypt's interior minister under former President Hosni Mubarak and eight others from charges of embezzling and facilitating embezzlement of public funds.

The court fined each of the defendants LE 500 ($29).

The court also sentenced Nabil Khalaf, a defendant in the case, to 3 years in prison, obliging him to refund LE 62,120,000 ($3.62 million), and ordered expelling him from his job.

The defendants acquitted of all charges include Ahmed Abdel Nabi, Mohamed Ahmed, Bakri Abdel Mohsen, Salah Abdel Qader, Nawal Helmy, Adel Fathy, Ola Kamal and Mohamed Deyaa al-Din.

This comes as the Giza court ordered, in February, the retrial of Adly and others in the case, saying that some points in the technical reports should be discussed by the court with experts.

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

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.