Egypt’s anti-graft agency said on Friday it had questioned former President Hosni Mubarak and his wife in a probe into corruption charges and ordered both detained pending further investigations. Investigators interrogated Mubarak, who has denied wrongdoing, for more than three hours on Thursday evening in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, and questioned his wife Suzanne on Friday, the state news agency MENA reported.
Mubarak’s wife would be detained for 15 days, MENA said. Security and judicial sources said she would be transferred to a Cairo prison. It was the first detention order for the ousted president’s wife, although the public prosecutor had already ordered Mubarak detained on April 13 as part of a separate investigation into charges of abuse of public funds and the killing of protesters. The 83-year-old ruler, ousted by a popular uprising in February, has been staying at a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh since he suffered health problems under initial questioning.
The prosecutor last month ordered Mubarak to be transferred to a Cairo prison hospital but said it would take at least a month to make the necessary preparations. “During its investigation, the agency confronted Mubarak with reports from comptrollers regarding unlawful gains not commensurate with his legitimate income during his career,” the state news agency said, citing Assem el-Gohari, a senior justice ministry official.