The Public Funds Prosecution ordered Sunday the release of former Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif on charges of obtaining illegal gifts under the former regime.
Nazif had received illegal gifts worth L.E58,000 from the Information Ministry under former President Hosni Mubarak.
The state-run Al-Ahram newspaper reported Sunday that Nazif submitted documents to the prosecution proving that he had returned the funds to the Egyptian state.
The case also includes former Environment Minister Maged George, who has reportedly returned funds after receiving illegal gifts from the Information Ministry. George’s gifts were worth LE13,000.
Nazif was prime minister from 2004 until Mubarak replaced him during the 25 January revolution. Nazif is implicated in several corruption cases currently being overseen by Egyptian courts.
On Thursday, the Giza Criminal court ordered the release of Nazif because the time limit allowed for his pretrial detention had expired. He had been held since the revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak.
However, Reuters quoted Mostafa Dewedar, the spokesperson for the public prosecution, as saying on Thursday that Nazif faces detention pending investigation in five other corruption cases, being overseen by the Public Funds Prosecution.
Nazif will also have a retrial on 27 July in the case that became known in the media as the "license plate trial."
In that July 2011 case, the Cairo Criminal Court convicted Nazif, former interior minister Habib al-Adly, and former Finance Minister Yussef Boutros Ghali of scheming to have a German company provide the country with car license plates at a higher price than could be found locally, which cost the state LE92 million in losses.
The Cairo Criminal Court had sentenced Nazif to a suspended one-year prison sentence, Adly to five years in prison, and Ghali to 10 years in absentia.
