Egypt court sentences former president Mubarak to three years in jail

An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced former president Hosni Mubarak and his two sons to three years in prison in a retrial on corruption charges.

The court also ordered the trio to pay a fine worth 125 million pounds ($16 million) over charges of committing financial irregularities related to the government's budget for the upkeep of presidential palaces, a judicial source said.

Last May, Mubarak was sentenced to three years in jail while his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, were each slapped with four-year jail terms after being found guilty of embezzling public funds allocated for the maintenance of presidential palaces and forging official documents.

The three were also ordered to pay back some 21 million Egyptian pounds (roughly $3 million) to the state and pay fines worth a total of 125.7 million Egyptian pounds (around $17 million).

But in January, Egypt's Court of Cassation-the country's highest appellate court-accepted an appeal lodged by Mubarak's lawyers against the sentences and ordered a retrial.

The court also ordered the release of Mubarak's two sons Alaa and Gamal pending trial in response to an appeal filed by their defense lawyer Fareed al-Deeb.

Prosecutors had said that two former officials in Mubarak's presidential office, along with two engineers from Egypt's Arab Contractors construction company, had helped the defendants illegally appropriate public funds, which were used to build, upgrade and furnish their own private properties.