CAIRO — Images of a former Cabinet minister and a steel magnate walking into prison have sent a shiver of disgust across much of Egypt as prosecutors widen investigations into the corrupt inner-circle of former President Hosni Mubarak.
Rich and once untouchable men connected to the seat of power have tumbled into disgraced suspects captured on Youtube stepping out of a police truck and into jail. It’s another sign of the startling change of fortunes that have enveloped this nation since protests forced Mubarak to step down one week ago.
Former Tourism Minister Zuheir Garana and steel tycoon Ahmed Ezz, a close friend of Mubarak’s son, Gamal, were arrested late Thursday and will be held for 15 days of investigation into corruption and other charges. Housing Minister Ahmed Maghrabi and former Interior Minister Habib Adli, blamed for brutality against protesters, have also been detained.
“There have been all kinds of crimes. They just go on and on,” said Anwar Essmat Sadat, a former member of Parliament and nephew of the late President Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated in 1981. “There’s a queue outside the attorney general’s office of people wanting to file corruption suits against government ministers, Mubarak and other officials.”
It is difficult to overstate the venom much of the nation has for tycoons and ministers connected to the ruling National Democratic Party. The organization was largely viewed as a network of businessmen close to Gamal Mubarak, a former top party official, whose financial ambitions and desire for privatization epitomized the ruling elite’s aloofness toward the poor and middle classes.
The Egyptian economy grew — at times, impressively — in recent years but corruption and cronyism, according to opposition leaders, kept the rewards from trickling to the working classes. About 40 percent of Egyptians live on $2 a day or less, and it was the outrage among workers that helped fuel the protests that brought down Mubarak.
“Daily interrogations show that a former official or a former minister was involved in corruption and I will not be surprised if members of the current Cabinet are exposed in the very near future,” said Hassan Abu Taleb, an analyst with the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. “Bit by bit we are watching the symbols of the old regime collapse.”
Ezz and the Cabinet ministers, all of whom have had their assets frozen, have denied wrongdoing on charges including money laundering, abuse of authority and squandering state wealth.
Ezz has been accused of illegally controlling a state-owned steel company that supplied materials to his firm, Ezz Steel, at reduced costs. In a symbolic act against the ruling party, mobs looted and burned one of his buildings in Cairo during the protests. But Ezz has said he supported the demonstrations.
“This great push that happened recently was welcomed by the whole of Egypt and went further than expected,” he recently told Al Arabiya. “I must salute the youth. I didn’t have a chance to meet the leaders there (in Tahrir Square). I hope I have a chance to some time. Personally I was not expecting the revolution at all.”
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