The North Cairo Criminal Court has acquitted former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq as well as deposed President Hosni Mubarak's sons Alaa and Gamal alongside other defendants accused of seizing land belonging to the Pilots Association. Allegations were levelled against Shafiq and others claiming that they illegally sold the state-owned land to Mubarak's sons at below-market rates in the 1990s, while Shafiq was head of the Air Force. The land in question is a 40,000 square meter plot in Ismailia Governorate allocated to the Association. Defendants are also charged with condoning procedures to withdraw the plots and violating a provision in the contract requiring them to build on the land within three years of the date of allocation, causing a loss of millions of pounds.
