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Egypt court forms committee to probe Habib al-Adly graft case
(Archive) Former Interior Minister Habib al-Adli while on trial.
CAIRO, Mar 13 (Aswat Masriya) - A Cairo court ordered forming a committee on Sunday to inspect the case files in the trial of former interior minister Habib al-Adly and others for abuse of office.
Adly and a dozen others are accused of seizing over EGP 2.38 billion (around $300 million). Last month, the court banned all defendants from travel and handed them freezing injunctions, preventing them from disposing of their money.
The 11-member committee will be led by the vice-president of the Central Auditing Agency and has been authorised by court to visit public and private institutions to ensure the accuracy of the case files.
The committee has a three-month deadline and its work will be funded by the defendants themselves who will be asked to pay a total of EGP 50,000 ($6,385) in a court hearing scheduled for Mar. 16.
When the investigation for this case began in 2012, the judge running it slapped a travel ban on Adly and over 100 security officials being investigated. Adly's travel ban lasted six months, while the rest were banned from travel for a year but the decision was not renewed throughout the course of the investigation.
The investigating judge dismissed around 90 of those under investigation after they repaid over EGP 150 million ($19.1 million), asserting that they had received the funds in good faith.
Adly was removed from his post as interior minister in January 2011 by then-President Hosni Mubarak who dismissed his entire cabinet in the midst of the 2011 Uprising. The 18-day-long protests began on national police day and were partly an expression against police practices.
Like several of Mubarak's top officials, Adly faced several charges after the president's 30-year rule ended in February 2011.
The former interior minister was taken into custody days after Mubarak's removal and has since been put on five trials. Adly was served a ratified sentence in one trial and was acquitted in the rest.
In March 2015, the former interior minister was released from Tora prison after spending over four years in custody.
