Two sons of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak arrested for alleged stock manipulation

An Egyptian criminal court ordered the arrest of ousted President Hosni Mubarak’s two sons on charges of stock market manipulation, state news agency MENA reported Saturday. 

Alaa and Gamal Mubarak, with seven other men, are accused of violating stock market and central bank rules to make unlawful profits through dealing in shares of Al Watany Bank of Egypt. 

Egyptian officials say police have detained the sons of former president Hosni Mubarak in connection with the insider trading charges. 

They said the arrests were ordered Saturday by judge Ahmed Aboul-Fetouh before he adjourned the hearings until Oct. 20. 

The two — wealthy businessman Alaa and Mubarak’s one-time heir apparent Gamal — were taken to a prison south of Cairo after the hearing, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

The two and their father were sentenced to three years in prison following their conviction on corruption charges in 2015. The sons were freed five months later for time served, while Mubarak walked free last year.
The trio were first detained in 2011 after an uprising forced Mubarak to resign.

The sons deny any wrongdoing. 

Three other men including Yasser El Mallawany and Hassan Heikal, current and former board members respectively at Egyptian investment bank EFG-Hermes, were also arrested, a judicial source said. 

All those accused in the case, which began in 2012, had been released on bail and barred from travel. 

Mubarak’s eldest son, Alaa, is a businessman. Gamal, a former banker, was widely viewed as being groomed for Egypt’s top job until Mubarak was toppled in February 2011. 

The pair had been free since 2015. 

The court’s next session is set for Oct. 20.

-Agencies