| © Reuters. Gamal and Alaa Mubarak, sons of Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarak, react behind bars during their trial with them father inside a dock at the police academy, on the outskirts of Cairo |
An Egyptian court on Thursday freed on bail the sons of ousted President Hosni Mubarak and others accused of illicit share trading, whose arrest last week was cited as one reason for a sharp drop in the stock market.
Alaa and Gamal Mubarak, along with seven other men, are accused of violating stock market and central bank rules to make unlawful profits through dealing in shares of Al Watany Bank of Egypt in 2007.
They deny any wrongdoing. The Mubarak brothers and three of the accused were detained on Saturday while four others of the group remained at large.
The Cairo Criminal Court on Thursday released the five who had been detained on 100,000 Egyptian pounds ($5,570) bail each and set a new hearing for Nov. 20, a witness in the court said.
Analysts have cited the arrests last week as being partly behind negative sentiments that led to a steep drop in the stock market on Sunday.
Among those detained were Yasser El Mallawany and Hassan Heikal, current and former board members respectively at Egyptian investment bank EFG-Hermes.
Mubarak’s eldest son, Alaa, is a businessman. Gamal, a former banker, was widely viewed as being groomed for Egypt’s top job until Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down in February 2011.
The pair were detained after Egypt’s 2011 uprising but had been free since 2015.