EGYPT – Ex-finance minister Boutros-Ghali gets life sentence

THE former Egyptian finance minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali was sentenced in absentia to life in prison in a corruption case on Tuesday, a Cairo criminal court source said. 

Boutros-Ghali, whose uncle Boutros Boutros-Ghali was U.N. secretary general from 1992 to 1996, served as finance minister under deposed President Hosni Mubarak. 

He fled the country and was convicted in absentia in 2011 in a separate graft case and sentenced to 30 years in prison. 

On April 24, 2013, Boutros-Ghali had been accused of squandering 13 million Egyptian pounds (USD1.9 million) of public funds in a transaction involving coupons used for the distribution of subsidised cooking gas. 

Many former officials have been convicted on graft and other charges since Mubarak fell in a 2011 uprising, but long, complicated legal proceedings have highlighted the difficulties of transitional justice in the country. 

Mubarak, 84, was convicted last June along with former Interior Minister Habib al-Adli of failing to prevent the killings of more than 800 demonstrators. Mubarak and al-Adli were both sentenced to life in prison, but the highest appeals court has ordered a retrial. The case is facing a delay after the presiding judge withdrew this month.