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Egypt court suspends 2011 decision to freeze assets of Mubarak-era minister

March 22, 2018 at 11:48 am

An Egyptian court has overturned a 2011 decision made by the prosecutor general at the time to freeze the assets of a Mubarak-era minister and his family over corruption charges.

The Cairo criminal court accepted the appeal filed by Youssef Wali, the former minister of agriculture, and his family, against the asset freeze.

In 2011, following a popular uprising that resulted in the ouster of Hosni Mubarak as president, prosecutors froze the assets of Wali and a number of his family members based on investigations as part of a legal case dubbed the agriculture ministry corruption case.

Last year the state’s top auditing body closed a probe into Wali’s assets and cleared him of the accusations.

Also last year, another court cleared Wali and Hussein Salem, a business tycoon known for his close relations with Mubarak, in a case in which the former was accused of selling state land to the latter for a price much lower than market price, causing the government to lose more than 700 million Egyptian pounds (around $3.9 million).

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