On Tuesday, the son of Egypt’s former president said that he and his family members were innocent of corruption charges made in international courts after the country´s 2011 popular uprising.
His statements came after years of attempts by the deposed president’s family to rehabilitate its image as it faced litigation in Egypt and abroad.
In a video statement released online, Gamal Mubarak, the son of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, said that recent court decisions in the European Union and elsewhere demonstrate their innocence, but did not explain how the family had amassed its significant wealth.
In February, a massive leak of Credit Suisse clients’ information showed Gamal Mubarak and his brother, Alaa, to have held at least $197.5 million in the bank at one point in time.
“The facts have now been established, and the false allegations have been unequivocally rebutted. The historical record has thus been independently and judicially corrected,” he said in a video statement released on YouTube. He blamed Egyptian judicial authorities for taking the issue to international courts.
The 2011 protests were built on calls for an end to deep-rooted embezzlement and government corruption in Egypt, and growing concerns that Gamal Mubarak would be set up to succeed his father, who was in power for more than 30 years. The international anti-corruption group Transparency International has estimated that as president, Mubarak stole some $70 billion in public funds. The former president died in 2020, aged 91.
In April, Swiss prosecutors decided not to file charges after concluding a decade-long investigation into alleged money laundering and organized crime linked to Mubarak´s circles in Egypt. They also said they would release some 400 million Swiss francs – $430 million – frozen in Swiss banks.
The same month, the General Court of the European Union ruled that the rights of Mubarak’s wife, two sons, and their wives had not been respected during a local Egyptian investigation of his assets, on which the prosecution was depending. The ruling meant EU sanctions on the Mubaraks’ accounts were deemed unlawful and lifted. Gamal Mubarak said his family was being reimbursed for their legal costs related to the case.
