The Cairo Criminal Court on Sunday postponed to 18 November the trial of former presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq, the sons of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, Alaa and Gamal, and four others on charges of involvement in an illegal land sale.
Shafiq, Mubarak’s last prime minister, has been in the United Arab Emirates since the announcement of his loss to President Mohamed Morsy in June. He is charged with selling a 40,000 square meter plot of land owned by the Cooperative Housing Association for Military Pilots to Alaa and Gamal at below-market rates in the 1990s.
Shafiq has been placed on the arrival watch list.
Farid al-Deeb, the Mubarak’s defense lawyer, said the case against his clients was an attempt at “political revenge,” adding that the pair had agreed to relinquish the land during interrogation with the approval of Public Prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmoud.
The court on Sunday tasked notary officers to transfer ownership from the Mubaraks back to the pilots association.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
