[JURIST] An Egyptian criminal court in Cairo convicted former president Hosni Mubarak [JURIST news archive] Wednesday of embezzling millions of dollars of public money. The court sentenced [NYT report] Mubarak to three years in prison. His sons, Gamal and Alaa, were sentenced to four years in prison for their role in the embezzling scheme. The three men were ordered by the court to pay USD $20 million in repayments and fines. According to prosecutors, over an eight-year period ending in 2011 Mubarak embezzled USD $17 million by billing personal expenses to the state-owned construction company, Arab Contractors, which was headed by Ibrahim Mehleb, the current prime minister. Moatassem Fathi, an investigator at the government’s Administrative Oversight Authority, has alleged in court documents that the former chief corruption watchdog, Gen. Mohamed Farid el-Tohamy, and current chief of general intelligence deliberately suppressed inquiry into Mubarak and other top officials.

Mubarak and other members of his administration have been the subject of controversial judicial proceedings since the Egyptian Revolution [JURIST backgrounder]. In December an Egyptian court acquitted [JURIST report] former Egyptian prime minister and presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq and Alaa and Gamal Mubarak of charges of embezzling public funds. In August Mubarak appeared in court for his retrial on complicity charges [JURIST report] in the killing of more than 100 protesters during Egypt’s 2011 uprising. The same week, Mubarak was released from prison [JURIST report] and placed under house arrest at a military hospital after a court concluded that he served the maximum in time allowed in connection with the long-pending corruption case. In July lawyers for Mubarak entered [JURIST report] a not guilty plea in his retrial for alleged complicity in the 2011 killings of protesters.