Mubarak’s sons excluded from decision to cancel freezing of funds in ‘manipulating stock exchange’ case

CAIRO – 5 November 2020: The Central Bank of Egypt has removed the names of seven people from lists of people whose funds are frozen in the case known in the media as "manipulating the stock exchange."

The decision did not include sons of late President Hosni Mubarak, Gamal and Alaa, as they are still charged in an illicit gains case.

The decision included Yasser Soliman, Ahmed Naeem Badr, Amr Al-Qaadi and Ayman Fathi Soliman, former members of the Board of Directors of the Al Watany Bank of Egypt.

This comes after a Cairo criminal court have acquitted of charges the included defendants.

In February, the Court acquitted the two sons of Egypt’s former president, along with the 7 other co-defendants, of charges of stock market manipulation.

The charges included embezzling at least 493.628 million, after they decided to sell Al Watany Bank of Egypt for profiteering via selling the bank assets in the stock exchange.

The Mubaraks’ lawyer Farid al-Dib said the charges aimed at defaming his clients’ reputation, adding that they did not deal in the bank’s shares. Al-Dib noted that 34 shareholders, apart from Alaa and Gamal, who traded in shares and they were not criminalized, saying “there is no crime at all.”

Two of the defendants were not members at the bank’s board of directors when the deal was concluded, al-Dib said. Another defendant has witnessed selling his son’s shares two months before the conclusion of the deal, he added, saying that the shareholders are those who decide to trade in shares not the board of directors. “The Central Bank of Egypt is responsible for this acquisition,” al-Dib said.