Egypt’s cassation court upholds imprisonment sentence for Mubarak-era minister Anas El-Fekki

CAIRO – 4 March 2021: Egypt’s Court of Cassation upheld on Thursday a three-year imprisonment sentence against Anas Al-Fekki, the information minister under late president Hosni Mubarak.

The cassation court’s verdicts are final and cannot be appealed.

Fekki was arrested and tried along with many other Mubarak-era ministers and high-level figures after the January 25 Revolution in 2011, which ousted Mubarak.

The Public Prosecution charged Fekki with deliberately wasting public funds through exempting Egyptian private satellite TV channels from paying the value for the football broadcast rights, in violation of international law.

This caused the Egyptian Radio and Television Union to lose LE 12 million, the prosecution concluded.

In February, Egypt reconciled with former Housing Minister Mohamed Ibrahim Soliman and businessman Magdy Rasekh, after they returned more than LE 1.3 billion, the Public Prosecution announced.

Soliman was the housing minister during Mubarak era and Rasekh is the father-in-law of Alaa Mubarak, the older son of Mubarak.

The national committee for the recovery of funds and assets abroad has signed a settlement to reconcile with Soliman and Rasekh on charges they face, in exchange for LE 1,315,701,024, the Public Prosecution said in a statement.

Rasekh and Soliman had faced charges related to corruption, illicit gains and embezzlement of public funds.