Shady business deals allegedly brokered by Hosni Mubarak and his family and other stalwarts of the regime netted billions, reports Gamal Essam El-Din Even before Hosni Mubarak was forced from office on 11 February speculation over the wealth of his family, and its sources, was rife. On Tuesday the Cairo Criminal Court ordered the freezing of Egyptian bank accounts held by the former president, his wife Suzanne and their sons Alaa and Gamal. The move came after the independent weekly Al-Osbou published documents purporting to show that both Gamal and Alaa have LE100 million on deposit at the National Bank of Egypt's Heliopolis branch, and that Suzanne Mubarak maintained a secret account at the same bank. The latter, it is alleged, contains donations from European countries intended to go to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, one of Suzanne Mubarak's per projects. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina's director, Ismail Serageldin, has denied any knowledge of the secret account. Neither he, nor the Bibliotheca's administration had been informed of its existence, either by the former president's office or by Suzanne Mubarak, says Serageldin. Should investigations into the sources of the Mubarak family's wealth uncover evidence of wrongdoing then members of the former president's family, even the former president himself, could face the possibility of jail. A number of leading lawyers have already refused to defend Mubarak. Only one, Mohamed Hammouda, has signaled that he might accept the brief, but only, he says, if he is offered "proof by the client of his innocence". In a statement released on 2 March the Mubarak family denied allegations that Suzanne Mubarak had embezzled foreign donations. "She was just empowered to sign on these accounts in her capacity as the president's wife but the money was strictly supervised by the president's staff," claimed the statement. Speculation over the extent of the Mubaraks' fortune began in earnest when the British newspaper the Guardian suggested it could be as high as $70 billion. "Much of this wealth is in British and Swiss banks or tied up in real estate in London, New York, Los Angeles and along expensive tracts of the Red Sea coast," said the article. Other newspapers, including the Financial Times, lowered the estimate, suggesting a figure of between $3 billion and $5 billion is more realistic. Two days after Mubarak left office Swiss authorities announced that any assets held by the former president and his family in Switzerland would be frozen. In the UK a spokesman for the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said it was already working to identify assets in Britain linked to Mubarak so that they could be seized if the Egyptian government lodges a request. Slowly, information is coming to light on how Mubarak, his family and their business cronies, amassed vast fortunes. According to an investigation by America's ABC news channel, in the early 1980s Mubarak was involved in an arms scam that signalled the beginning of decades of kickback schemes and corrupt business dealings. ABC alleges that while still vice president Mubarak, helped by former intelligence officer Hussein Salem, set up the Egyptian American Transport and Service Company (EATSCO) with an American partner to transport American arms to Egypt. A federal probe subsequently uncovered that EATSCO had embezzled millions of dollars via an exclusive Pentagon contract signed following the Camp David peace agreement with Israel in 1978. "There were many, many weapons. Billions of dollars in armaments needed to be shipped. It was an enormous job," says Ibrahim Oweiss, the Georgetown University professor of economics who at the time was head of Egypt's economic mission to the US. "Hussein was the façade for the Mubarak family," says Oweiss, who met Salem and was aware of his ties to the Egyptian intelligence community and Mubarak's brother-in-law, Mounir Thabet, then a senior Egyptian military procurement official. Later, Salem would use his close ties with Mubarak to monopolise the export of Egyptian natural gas to Israel through the East Mediterranean Gas Company. He also acquired large tracts of land in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. Mubarak and his family are thought to be staying in a villa annexed to Salem's Maritime Jolie Ville Hotel. Mubarak and his two sons Gamal and Alaa are believed to have received hundreds of millions of dollars in commission from the sale of natural gas to Israel from Salem. While staying in London and working with Bank of America in the early 1990s Gamal Mubarak made vast sums trading in Egypt's foreign debt, exploiting his father's position as president. In an interview with Al-Musawwar magazine in 1993 Hosni Mubarak admitted his son had amassed a fortune by doing so though the then president did not appear to have noticed any conflict of interests. In addition to Mubarak's family, high ranking officials who surrounded the president for much of his three decades in office are also facing investigations. Men like Zakaria Azmi, Mubarak's chief of staff; Fathi Sorour, the longest-serving parliamentary speaker in Egypt's history and Safwat El-Sherif, the secretary-general of Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), remained in office so long that the public dubbed them "the immortals". On 2 March the office of Prosecutor-General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud announced that all three will be summoned for questioning over their personal finances. Zakaria Azmi, 73, was appointed Mubarak's chief of staff in 1989. His job included preparing Mubarak's daily agenda of meetings and visits and receiving documents and messages sent to Mubarak from Egypt and abroad. He attended most, if not all, of Mubarak's meetings with world leaders, in public and in private. Azmi accompanied Mubarak on all of his foreign trips, including two visits to Germany in 2004 and 2010 for medical treatment. For the protesters in Tahrir Square Azmi holds many of the clues necessary to unravel the business dealings of the former president's family. He is also accused of using his position to secure huge sums of money for himself and his family and to acquire prime real estate and agricultural land across Egypt. Safwat El-Sherif, 78, is another of the former president's confidantes. When Mubarak took office in October 1981 one of his first decisions was to appoint El-Sherif as minister of information. A former intelligence officer who was tasked with recruiting women to work as spies, El-Sherif was forced to resign after the 1967 war, though this did not prevent him serving as information minister for 22 years, during which he also acted as Mubarak's special envoy to several world leaders, including Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and Saudi Arabia's monarch King Abdallah. Like Azmi, El-Sherif is accused of exploiting his position to secure favourable land deals and secure a portfolio of prime real estate. He is also accused of forcing through favourable business deals for his son, Omar, in the media sector. El-Sherif has denied all allegations of wrongdoing, insisting that his business interests and property acquisitions are all above board. Such assurances carried little weight with El-Sherif's one time colleague Amal Othman, a former minister of social affairs and a long-term NDP deputy in the People's Assembly. In a surprise move last week Othman presented a dossier to the prosecutor-general that she said contained enough information to see El-Sherif brought to trial. Fathi Sorour, 79, who served as People's Assembly speaker between 1990 and 2011, is accused of peddling influence for personal gain. He, too, is thought to have amassed a large portfolio of prime real estate. Other senior officials now facing investigation include former minister of local administration Abdel-Salam El-Mahgoub and governor of Alexandria Adel Labib. They are joined by former minister of petroleum Sameh Fahmi; former minister of tourism Zoheir Garana; housing minister Ahmed El-Maghrabi; minister of information Anas El-Fiqi and interior minister Habib El-Adli. In addition to charges of financial irregularities the latter will also face trial for ordering the police to fire at protesters with live ammunition. Rachid Mohamed Rachid and Youssef Boutros Ghali, former ministers of trade and finance, respectively, also face corruption charges. Both left Egypt before Mubarak resigned. Corruption charges have also been filed against two former prime ministers, Ahmed Nazif and Atef Ebeid, and former minister of culture Farouk Hosni. All now face travel bans. Twenty-eight businessmen linked to Hosni Mubarak's son, Gamal, are now in detention. They include Mohamed Abul-Enein, owner of Ceramica Cleopatra, Yassin Mansour, head of Mansour Group, and Mahmoud El-Gammal, Gamal Mubarak's father-in-law. Most of the arrested businessmen face charges of exploiting their membership of the NDP and parliament for personal profit, including acquiring vast tracts of state land for a fraction of its market value and then selling it on at an enormous profit.
