Gamal Mubarak, 58, son of former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, said on Tuesday that he and his family are clear of corruption charges after international courts dropped claims against them last month. Following the 2011 uprising that led to the ouster of his father, Gamal and his family were charged with corruption.
In a 20-minute-long video titled ‘Mubarak family statement on the successful conclusion of all international judicial proceedings’, Gamal said Egyptian authorities have punished his family members based on “false allegations of corruption” peddled by the media.
“My family has decided that we simply cannot stay silent anymore in the face of such persistent defamatory reporting. It is time that the family responds, and directly,” he stressed.
He noted that for over a decade, “various investigative measures and sanctions were initiated against members of the Mubarak family” in the European Union (EU) and elsewhere. “They [courts] have fully exonerated us and vindicated the position my family has held for over a decade, confirming specifically that the EU sanctions against us were always unlawful,” he remarked.
After the fall of Mubarak, a series of trials were launched against his family over alleged human rights abuses and corruption. Immediately following the Egyptian revolt, the Guardian reported that the Mubarak family fortune could be as much as $70 billion, of which a large part came from public funds.
The EU and Switzerland also pursued investigations against the Mubaraks and imposed sanctions on the family.
However, in April, Swiss and EU courts acquitted the family of any wrongdoing. Moreover, the rights of Mubarak’s sons were not respected by Egyptian authorities during local investigations. In this respect, Swiss authorities said they would release around $430 million of frozen funds to the family.
“Not a single allegation regarding the professional business activity of myself and my brother was true. All our income was judicially confirmed to have originated from lawful sources,” Gamal stressed. “We have already received a substantial payment from the EU Council to refund our legal costs as ordered by the EU Court of Justice,” he added.
Gamal also noted that he is actively considering “all possible legal avenues to pursue damages claims against the EU Council for its conduct towards me and my family.”
Moreover, he emphasised that his family has instructed their lawyers “to reserve all our rights against any defamatory reporting about my family in that respect.”
The @EUCourtPress's ruling to unfreeze former president Hosni Mubarak's assets sends exactly the wrong message to corrupt leaders.
— Transparency International (@anticorruption) April 8, 2022
Europe must reform its asset recovery processes to support the victims of corruption. #StopKleptocrats https://t.co/L6M00S7ZBf
However, international anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International said that the decision of European courts to lift sanctions imposed on the Mubarak family signals that “corruption has an expiry date.” It also said that removing restrictions on the Mubaraks would lead to corrupt actors across the world acting with impunity.
“The Egyptian people suffered the rule of Hosni Mubarak for 30 years—the wealth he stole should now enrich them, not his family who supported the oppression,” it concluded.