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Algeria Gears Up for the Day its Fortunes Changed

FILE - In this Dec. 26, 2018 file photo, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, center, arrives with his sons Alaa, left, and Gamal, right, to testify, in a courtroom at the National Police Academy in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. Egypt has arrested the administrator of a Facebook page that supports former President Hosni Mubarak, who was forced from power by a pro-democracy uprising in 2011. Prosecutors on Thursday, July 11, 2019, charged Karim Hussein with spreading false news and undermining national interests after a series of posts that implied Mubarak did more to help the poor than the current government. (AP Photo/Ahmed Abdel Fattah, File)

An Egyptian court has acquitted the two sons of ousted President Hosni Mubarak on charges of stock market manipulation, the latest in a series of trials of Mubarak’s family since the 2011 uprising that toppled the longtime autocrat after nearly three decades in power. The trial centered on the purchase by Mubarak’s sons — wealthy businessman Alaa and Mubarak’s one-time heir apparent Gamal — of a large number of shares in a local Egyptian bank. They allegedly knew the bank was to become the target of a takeover by an Gulf Arab investor, a move that was virtually certain to drive up share prices dramatically. The trial was one of series of court proceedings against Mubarak and his family in recent years. The two sons and their father were sentenced to three years in prison following their conviction of embezzling funds set aside for the restoration and maintenance of presidential palaces, using the money to upgrade their private residences. The sons were released in 2015 for time served, while Mubarak walked free in 2017. The trio paid back to the state the money they embezzled.

SOURCE: TIMES OF ISRAEL

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