Mubarak and Sons on Trial

News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
***************************************

Why is Mubarak and sons on trial in Egypt?  The immediate reason for the detention and criminal investigations of the three most visible symbols of the collapsed Mubarak regime is the theft of public resources.  In my co-authored book (with Kevin Ford and Mark Davies with a contribution by Vincent Green) Law Enforcement and Government Ethics (Praeger, 2000), corruption was simply defined as the conversion of public funds and other resources into private funds and resources.

In 1983, while I was on an assignment to write an article for Forbes magazine on the Egyptian economy, I interviewed Ambassador Frank Wisner, the then U.S. Ambassador to Egypt.  I posed the following question to the Ambassador, "What is the future of U.S. aid to Egypt (then under Mubarak)?"  His short but enlightened answer was, "Egypt has plenty of resources.  Egypt does not need aid.  It needs trade."

With the January 25 Revolution toppling the 32-year long Mubarak dictatorship, the first set of charges levelled by Egypt's Prosecutor General is: "How did you, Mr. Mubarak, on your salary as Egypt's President, amass billions of dollars deposited abroad?"  This is the central charge on which the former President and his two sons, Gamal and Alaa, are being subjected to detention pending investigation before trial.

No other issue has galvanized all of Egypt as seeing the law being applied for the massive corruption engaged in by the ousted regime, including several members of the various Mubarak cabinets.  And anti-corruption measures have also included the abuse of power, police brutality, and the peddling of influence through bribes.

The ecstasy generated by the sight of the formerly high and mighty, wearing prison garb and sitting at the Tora massive detention camp south of Cairo, for their misdeeds is palpable.  In an upper Egypt city of Souhag, nearly halfway between Cairo and Aswan, a popular political figure declared recently, "These investigations and prospective trials have filled our hearts with joy.  They like medals which are now worn by every Egyptian.  Jail is the logical abode for Mubarak."

During my recent visit to Egypt (April 2 to April 22), I delivered a lecture in Arabic before the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, an NGO which I represent before the U.N., New York City.  Most of the questions addressed to me following that lecture were focused on how to undo the great harm done to Egypt for 32 years by the Mubarak regime.  The audience were in a hurry to know, "How can we get our money back?"

That interest, which accurately reflects the spirit of the millions in Tahrir Square and beyond was reflected in headlines of seven daily newspapers of mass circulation in the Arab world.  One of them, Al-Akhbar (The News) headlined in its edition of April 15: "Yassin El-Ayouty of Fordham University School of Law Asserts that Recovery of the People's Stolen Funds Is Not Impossible."  So was the tenor of other news media.

In Al-Ahram newspaper of May 12, that 135-year old newspaper, declared on its front page: "Investigating the Former Minister of Interior Next Week for Illegal Profiteering."  It is therefore expected that the Egyptian media will give prominence to what the New York Times reported, also on May 12, on President Obama's "own impatience" with the fact that "many of these countries remained mired in corruption."  For there is a definite link between corruption and the upheavals now taking place in the Arab world.