Mubarak Detention Extended, Tourism Minister Jailed
Egypt's state prosecutor renewed the detention of ousted president Hosni Mubarak amid a probe into corruption and the killing of protesters, as the former tourism minister was jailed for fraud on Tuesday.
Abdel Magid Mahmud "has ordered the preventive detention of former president Hosni Mubarak for 15 days that will begin when his current detention ends" on May 12, the prosecutor's office said in a statement.
The decision came after a team of investigators questioned Mubarak again in a hospital in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where he is being held.
It is the second time Mubarak's detention has been extended.
The decision comes three months after Mubarak was overthrown in a popular uprising that saw power handed over to a military council.
The trial of former regime members, including Mubarak, was a key demand of the protesters.
Sources at the public prosecutor's office told Agence France Presse that a decision on whether or not to put Mubarak on trial would be announced in the coming days.
Meanwhile, former tourism minister Zuheir Garranah was sentenced to five years in prison on charges of corruption.
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.
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.
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 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.
Adly, who ran Mubarak's security services for more than a decade before the strongman's overthrow in the face of 18 days of mass protests, was convicted of money-laundering and illicitly enriching himself while in office.
He faces a second trial on charges of ordering police to shoot protesters, and a third alongside the former premier and finance minister over a deal with a German firm to supply Egypt with license plates at allegedly inflated prices.
Mubarak is currently under arrest in a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh, while the military mulls moving him to a prison hospital in Cairo.
The former president was hospitalized on April 12 after suffering a heart attack and was put under preventive detention the following day, two months after he was overthrown.
At least 846 people were killed in the protests that swept the country to demand his resignation and more than 6,000 wounded.
Mubarak's two sons Alaa and Gamal, along with dozens officials and businessmen associated with the former regime are being detained in Cairo's notorious Tora prison which housed political dissidents during the Mubarak era.
Source: Agence France Presse
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