The Cairo Criminal Court ordered on Tuesday former interior minister Habib El-Adly and 12 of his underlings to be placed under house arrest for the duration of their trial on charges of illicit gains, and postponed the trial to 13 December. The court postponed the case per the request of defence lawyers to hear testimony from the former head of the Accountability State Authority Gawdat El-Malt and the one-time Mubarak interior minister Hassan Al-Alfy in the upcoming session. The defendants, who were referred to the criminal court in August 2015, are accused of abusing their positions to illicitly gain EGP 2.388 bn and illegally rewarding ministry officers. In the wake of the 25 January uprising in 2011, the long-time interior minister during Mubarak's era was acquitted in several other trials on charges of embezzlement, squandering public funds and the killing of protesters. In 2014, he was acquitted along with six of his aides and former president Hosni Mubarak on charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during the January 2011 uprising. In a separate case, El-Adly also saw an initial 12-year sentence and EGP 15 million in fines dropped in a case that involved charges of corruption and money laundering.
