CAIRO: An Egyptian court sentenced former president Hosni Mubarak and his two sons to three years in jail without parole today in the retrial of a corruption case.
Mubarak was sentenced to three years in prison last May for diverting public funds earmarked to renovate presidential palaces and using the money to upgrade family properties. His two sons were given four-year jail terms in the same case. However, in January, Egypt’s high court overturned the convictions. Mubarak, who ruled Egypt with an iron fist for 30 years, and his sons Gamal and Alaa may not have to serve any jail time for those corruption charges because they already spent that amount of time in prison in other cases.
“The ruling of the court is three years in prison without parole for Mohamed Hosni Mubarak and Gamal Mohamed Hosni Mubarak and Alaa Mohamed Hosni Mubarak,” announced judge Hassan Hassanein.
Mubarak was toppled during the Arab Spring uprisings which swept the region in 2011 and raised hopes of democracy.
But a court decision to drop charges against Mubarak of conspiring to kill protesters in the uprising focused in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and the release from jail of some of his associates has cast doubt over Egypt’s political transformation. (Reuters)
