CAIRO: Former Egyptian Prime Minister Atef Obeid was detained for 15 days pending an investigation into a land deal he allegedly conducted at well below market value, judicial sources were reported to have said on Thursday. It is the latest arrest of former President Hosni Mubarak officials, who since February's ousting of the regime, have been under investigation for corruption. Judge Ahmed Edrees, commissioned by the justice ministry to investigate corruption within the agriculture ministry, accused Obeid and Youssef Wali, a former deputy prime minister, of illegally selling land in Luxor in the south of Egypt. The two former officials are charged with selling the land to businessman Hussein Salem, a close associate to Mubarak, for 8 million Egyptian pounds ($1.3 million) when the value of the land was worth over 200 million pounds. The land was also sold illegally because it is a protected nature reserve, Edrees said. Obeid denied in a five-hour investigation on Thursday responsibility for the deal, blaming it on Wali, sources said. The former prime minister, who was banned from travel out of Egypt on February 23 for other charges, was PM from 1999 to 2004. He then resigned under increasing pressure from business leaders demanding faster privatization in the country. The public prosecutor in April sequestered funds belonging to Obeid as part of a probe into alleged squandering of public funds relating to the sale of Assiut Cement, now a local affiliate of Mexican company Cemex, Reuters news agency reported. BM
