Ousted former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was sentenced on Wednesday for embezzling millions of public funds to keep up with a luxurious lifestyle, Reuters reported. Mubarak received a three-year sentence for using the said funds for lavish renovations to family properties.
Although the sentencing could be news welcomed by some Egyptians who had survived a three-decade autocracy under Mubarak, rights group said that the country is in danger of being exposed to abusive security practices as another military man and Mubarak's former military intelligence head Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is set to win the nation's presidential elections next week. Moreover, the advocates said business executives who are still loyal to Mubarak remained influential in the country.
Aside from Mubarak, his two sons were handed out four-year jail sentences over similar charges. The Mubaraks were also fined by the court 21.197 million Egyptian pounds ($2.98 million) and had issued an order for the three of them to repay the country about 125 million Egyptian pounds of funds that they supposedly plundered, Reuters said.
Judge Osama Shaheen addressed Mubarak and his sons Gamal and Alaa who were in a cage and said, "He (Mubarak) should have treated people close and far from him equally. Instead of abiding by the constitution and laws, he gave himself and his sons the freedom to take from public funds whatever they wanted to without oversight and without regard."
Mubarak has already spent time in jail from the uprising, the news agency said. Aside from a pending retrial in a case regarding the killing of protesters during a 2011 revolt, the 86 year-old fallen leader is also accused in two other corruption cases that have yet to reach the courts.
On the other had, judicial sources told Reuters that they are not expecting the fallen leader to serve his sentence for the charges. His sons are also expected to not serve their sentences since they have already done jail time for three years. Four other defendants in the case were acquitted, the news agency added.
