On Saturday the Cairo Criminal Court acquitted Gamal and Alaa, the sons of the deposed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and six other businessmen and bank officials in the case known in the media as the case of “manipulating the stock market.” In addition to Mubarak’s two sons, the court acquitted Ayman Suleiman, Yasser al-Mallwani, Hassan Muhammad Hassanein Heikal, Amr al-Qadi, Hussein Lotfy, and Ahmed Naim. The Egyptian Public Prosecution accused the defendants in 2012 of violating the laws of the stock market and the Central Bank.

Investigations by the Public Prosecution indicated that the defendants agreed to control the shares of the National Bank by forming a ruling share for them in purchasing through closed investment funds, and selling it to a Saudi investor without disclosing them on the stock exchange. This case lasted for eight years, and was considered by eight judicial circles, one of whom issued a ruling to convict and imprison the accused, before they were all acquitted today.