CAIRO: Egyptian-Spanish fugitive business tycoon Hussein Salem has reached a final agreement with the Egyptian government in a profiteering case, Youm7 reported
Salem reached a deal to pay a part of his frozen funds in exchange for dropping charges of embezzling $41 million and ceding his and his son’s frozen profits, an anonymous Judicial source told Youm7 Wednesday. The amount of money Salem paid has not disclosed yet.
According to the investigations carried out by the Public Prosecution, Salem’s Medelec for Electricity Company had signed an agreement with the state-owned Middle East Oil Refinery (MIDOR) to establish an electricity plant to avoid power cuts during the refinery process; the construction of power plant cost $5 billion and the plant has not operated yet.
In April, Ministry of Justice referred the case to the Public Prosecution for investigation. Salem’s son, Khaled, and former Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif are defendants in the same case.
In an interview with al-Masry al-Youm newspaper in April, Salem claimed that he had built MIDOR for the Egyptian army for free upon a mandate from the General Intelligence. He added that the construction of the company cost $1 billion while its value now is $8 billion.
Recently, Salem, former President Hosni Mubarak and his two sons were acquitted of corruption charges and squandering public money over exporting gas to Israel with unreasonable prices.