Egyptian Court orders retrial of Mubarak-era PM in graft case

An Egyptian court today ordered the retrial of Ahmed Nazif, a former prime minister under long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak, who was sentenced to five years in prison last year on graft charges.
Nazif, who served as the country's prime minister from 2004 to January 2011, was sentenced to three years in prison in 2012 over corruption and profiteering charges.
Nazif had appealed the sentence, but last July the court found him guilty for the second time and gave him five years in prison and a fine of over 53 million Egyptian pounds.
Nazif, who appealed the sentence again, will face the retrial on February 3.

He was imprisoned after Mubarak's ouster following the 2011 revolution and released in June 2013 as he had spent the maximum allowed period in pre-trial detention for corruption charges.
According to Egyptian law, a convicted person can appeal court verdict twice.

Earlier this year, Nazif was acquitted in another corruption case in which he and former interior minister Habib El-Adly had been sentenced to one year and five years in jail respectively, over charges of illegal profiting and squandering public funds.
Meanwhile, in a separate case, the court upheld the prison sentences of a number of Muslim Brotherhood leaders over torturing a lawyer in Tahrir Square in Cairo during the 2011 revolution.

Muslim Brotherhood leaders Safwat Hegazy, Mohamed el-Beltagy, Hazem Farouk and others were sentenced in October last year from three to 15 years in prison.
The court today refused their appeal and confirmed the sentences.