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Mubarakâ€™s tourism minister jailed

10 May 2011 16:28 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Egyptâ€™s former tourism minister Zuheir Garranah was sentenced to five years in prison on charges of corruption and misuse of public funds, APA reports with reference to AFP.
Garranah, who was sentenced along with two businessmen, was charged with misuse of public funds totaling 51 million dollars, after authorizing the sale of state-owned land for well below the market price. Garranah was convicted of ordering the sale of 305 million square meters of land -- some of it oil-bearing -- to businessmen Hisham al-Hazeq and Hussein Segwani for one dollar per square meter for tourism projects.
He is the second Mubarak-era minister to be jailed for corruption, as part of a sweeping probe into corruption by the country’s new military rulers. He was detained on February 17, less than a week after a popular uprising forced Mubarak to step down and hand power to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. On Thursday, a court sentenced once feared Egyptian interior minister Habib al-Adly to 12 years for corruption.