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Egypt regime insider found guilty of corruption

15 September 2011 18:41 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. One of the Middle East’s most prominent steel magnates was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in jail in a corruption case that targeted a leading figure associated with ousted President Hosni Mubarak and his son, APA reports citing Associated Press.

Ahmed Ezz, once a leading figure in the former ruling party, was sentenced along with former government official Amr Assal. The two were fined a total of $110 million.

Ezz appeared in court wearing a prison uniform behind a defendants’ cage. He can appeal the corruption conviction.

Also, former Trade Minister Rachid Mohammed Rachid, who remains at large, was sentenced to 15 years in jail and ordered to pay a $237 million fine for approving production licenses to Ezz without auctioning them publicly first.

Rachid was convicted along with two businessmen earlier this year of squandering public funds and profiteering in a separate case. In that case, he was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $800,000 in fines.

Thursday’s verdict revoked the licenses of Ezz Steel and the Egyptian Sponge Iron and Steel Co.

Ezz was arrested in February, days after Mubarak was toppled by mass protests. Among the key demands of Egyptian protesters was an end to corruption and kickbacks that favored officials and businessmen close to the ousted president. Watchdog groups allege that top officials and tycoons were involved in sweetheart deals in the Mubarak era, and that the Mubaraks were major beneficiaries of that system

As a key official in the former ruling party, Ezz often spoke vehemently in support of the ousted president and was believed to be guiding efforts to promote Mubarak’s son Gamal to inherit the presidency.

Ezz was long accused by businessman and activists of monopolizing the steel industry in Egypt.

He and a number of high ranking former officials and businessmen, including Mubarak’s two sons, are being held in Cairo’s Tora prison.

In a separate case Thursday, ex-Oil Minister Sameh Fahmy and six other defendants faced trial on charges related to a natural gas deal with Israel that prosecutors say harmed Egypt’s national interests.

Under the deal, the Cairo-based gas company agreed to sell natural gas to an Israeli company at a price reportedly under market value.

Prosecutors allege that businessman Hussein Salem, whose company is involved in the gas deal, made at least $336 million from the deal and that it cost Egypt even more.

Salem has fled the country and is believed to be in Spain. He is being tried in absentia.

The lawyer defending the country’s former oil minister asked the court to allow testimony from Mubarak’s former spy chief in the trial.

Omar Suleiman, who was also briefly appointed vice president by Mubarak after protests erupted late January, gave testimony this week in a closed session of the trial of Mubarak, who is charged with complicity in the killing of protesters in the uprising against his rule.

Fahmy’s lawyer said he requested Suleiman’s testimony be used in the case relating to the sale of natural gas to Israel because it was "political." He did not elaborate because of a complete media blackout on his testimony in the Mubarak case, barring journalists from attending or even reporting accounts of what was said in the sessions.

The defendants face up to 15 years in jail and fines of hundreds of millions of dollars. A former oil ministry official, Abdelalim Taha, told the court Thursday that the deal and that the price of gas to Israel was not in Egypt’s favor. He said Fahmy offered Israel to sell gas at half the price Israel had requested, and that the deal was approved and signed by Cabinet.

Opposition groups tried and failed under Mubarak to challenge the deal in court, which agreed to sell Egyptian natural gas to Israel for 15 years at a fixed price.