CAIRO - Egyptian authorities imposed a travel ban on the heads of the two houses of the Parliament in the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak and the chief of his presidential staff. Assem el-Gohari, an assistant justice minister, said the ban had been imposed on Fathi Sorour, the Speaker of the People's Assembly; Safwat el-Sherif, the chairman of Shura Council; and Zakaria Azmi, the chief of the presidential staff as well as on their spouses. The official added that he had ordered their bank accounts be disclosed. A judicial committee, headed by the chief of Egypt's Justice Ministry's Illicit Gains Department, will leave for a European Union tour within a few days to follow up on measures to freeze assets of former President Hosni Mubarak and other officials as well as means to regain the frozen funds. "The panel will discuss with officials the steps to regain the frozen assets of Mubarak and other 18 ex-officials. We will do our best to remove the secrecy of the bank accounts," said judge Assem el-Gohari, the head of the committee. El-Gohari told a Cairo press conference yesterday that the judicial panel would also try to get familiarised with the procedures to be followed in each European country to retrieve the funds. "The panel is also entitled to show the Europeans the strong evidence of former officials' corruption that led to the asset-freeze decision," el-Gohari said. He added that the committee, which was created by the ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces and approved by the Cabinet, will do its best to help Egyptians retrieve their funds. The European Union froze assets of Mubarak and 18 others, including his family and partners, on March 21. The decision was declared in Brussels prior to a meeting on Monday in response to a request from Egypt's Foreign Ministry. Al-Shorouq independent newspaper has recently issued a report quoting an economist who put the funds frozen overseas at more than LE140 billion, saying that each Egyptian could get LE178,000 if they were redistributed. A legal expert, however, said these were mere speculations, adding that the accounts were secret and other assets needed thorough investigations to be confirmed.
