LONDON: BBC Arabic's investigative documentary reveals that the British Government has potentially violated the sanctions agreement it signed in March 2011 to freeze the property and business assets of 19 key members of Egypt's toppled dictatorship. The full documentary will be screened on BBC Arabic TV on Monday 3rd September at 19.05 GMT and a shorter version on Newsnight on BBC Two at 10:30pm. Assets amounting to many millions of pounds including properties in Knightsbridge and Chelsea, and companies registered in the UK have been discovered by the BBC Arabic team, all of which have direct connections to the names on the official sanctions list – and yet have not been frozen. BBC Arabic travels to Cairo to meet those investigating Egypt's stolen money and finds that the UK is facing criticism from the newly elected Egyptian government. Dr Mohamed Mahsoob, the newly appointed Minister for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs told BBC Arabic: “The UK is one of the worst countries when it comes to tracing and freezing Egyptian assets... the UK is doing nothing less than bleeding Egyptian assets which can only be to the detriment of the Egyptian nation." Up to now the UK Government say they have frozen around £85m ($125m) of Egyptian money. Switzerland have frozen around £550m ($734m) and managed to put a freeze on the Egyptian money within half an hour of Mubarak falling from power. It took the UK Government 37 days before the freezing order was made. In an exclusive interview with BBC Arabic the Swiss Prosecutor General Michael Lauber describes how crucial it is to freeze money immediately after dictators fall in order to catch the money When asked why it took so long to freeze Egyptian assets in the UK, British Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt said, “I have no knowledge of that." He went on: “In order for us to do our work we need the information from the Egyptian authorities and if that has not been forthcoming, we've not been able to help." The BBC Arabic investigation presents Mr Burt with publicly available Land Registry and Companies House documents it has found, showing that the UK government has potentially violated the international sanctions agreement it signed, imposed on members of the Mubarak regime. He replied “Well I'm not aware if any applications have been made to freeze any of these particular assets...so I'm not in a position to answer that." The BBC Arabic programme investigates the ways in which billions of pounds was stolen from Egypt and what the new post-revolutionary Egypt is doing to try and get that money back. In response to the BBC Arabic investigation, British Shadow Justice Minister Andy Slaughter comments, “Your investigation shows that 20 minutes work by officials could have identified very substantial assets belonging to the Mubarak regime…I think it sends a terrible message to Egyptian people. That UK is not interested in helping Egyptian society…the UK used to be a place where international justice was seen to be done, but now we're turning a blind eye to every type of abuse." ** This is a press release from BBC.
