A Cairo court sentenced Egypt's deposed autocrat Hosni Mubarak and his two sons to three years each in prison on corruption charges on Saturday -- a punishment that authorities may deem as having already been served, but one which, if it withstands appeal, would officially establish Mubarak as a convicted criminal years after the 2011 Arab Spring uprising that toppled him. The case -- dubbed the "presidential palaces" affair by the Egyptian media -- was a retrial charging that Mubarak and his sons embezzled millions of dollars' worth of state funds over the course of a decade, diverting money meant to pay for renovating and maintaining presidential palaces to upgrade their private residences instead. Mubarak had originally been sentenced to three years over the matter, and his sons to four, but they later appealed, sparking the retrial. As Egypt's political tides shifted in the wake of his overthrow, he was convicted of bearing responsibility for the deaths of protesters but was later acquitted, although that ruling now faces an appeal by prosecutors. Inside the courtroom at a sprawling, locked-down police academy on the outskirts of Cairo, a dozen Mubarak supporters shouted in anger as Judge Hassan Hassanin announced his verdict, standing up on benches and pumping their fists into the air. The three defendants stood in a courtroom cage soundproofed with a glass enclosure. A seated, suited Mubarak, wearing sunglasses and flanked by sons Gamal and Alaa, had no visible reaction to the verdict, which their lawyers say can be appealed. The sentencing included a fine of 125 million Egyptian pounds ($16.4 million) to be paid by the three men, as well as the return of 21 million Egyptian pounds ($2.8 million) they embezzled. After the hearing, judicial and security officials said those amounts had already been paid by the Mubaraks following their first trial. Egypt's political transition has seen many upheavals. In 2013, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the then-army chief, removed the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi from power after mass protests against his troubled one-year rule. Security forces then launched a cracked down on the Brotherhood and its supporters, and targeted liberal activists in what human rights groups have condemned as a return to the police state and repression of the Mubarak era. The U.S.-backed Egyptian government says it is committed to democracy, and large-scale unrest in the Arab world's most populous country has ended. Many Egyptians turned a blind eye to what is the toughest security crackdown in Egypt's history for the sake of stability after street protests and attacks by militant groups gutted the tourism industry, a pillar of the economy. Occasional troubles persist, however. On Saturday, one policeman and three Muslim Brotherhood supporters were killed in clashes in the city of Damietta, the Interior Ministry said. In addition, Islamist militants launched an insurgency after Morsi was ousted. Based in the Sinai, they have pledged allegiance to Islamic State, and have killed hundreds of police and soldiers. In North Sinai, their main strongholds, gunmen killed a police officer and a retired state security agent in separate attacks, security sources said.
Court sentences Egypt's Mubarak, sons to 3 years in prison
Authorities may deem the sentence as already having been served • But the verdict, if it withstands appeal, would officially establish the former Egyptian president, who was toppled in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, as a convicted criminal.
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