30 years in prison ex-finance minister: Egypt

CAIRO: Former Egyptian finance minister Yussef Boutros Ghali was on Saturday sentenced to 30 years in prison in absentia on corruption charges, an AFP correspondent said.

Judge Magdi Ghoneim of the Cairo criminal court sentenced Ghali to 15 years for squandering public money by using cars held in customs and 15 years for abusing his position for personal gain from ministry funds.

Ghali, who is out of the country and wanted by Interpol, has also been fined 70 million Egyptian pounds (around $11 million).

The court found the former minister guilty of having used 102 cars waiting in customs including six luxury cars for personal use in an action which "greatly harmed the financial interests" of their owners.

He was also found guilty of having used the finance ministry's resources for his personal electoral campaign, printing materials at the expense of the ministry.

Ghali is one of a string of ministers of ousted president Hosni Mubarak's regime to face justice as part of a sweeping probe into fraud by Egypt's new military rulers.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011