An Egyptian court has fined jailed former President Hosni Mubarak and two others from his discredited regime $90 million for slicing off telecommunications at the height of the demonstrations that ultimately toppled him.
It may seem like a staggering amount of money but if other reports are believed it’ll be a drop in the bucket to Mubarak, if he has even some of the money some estimate he has stashed away. Time will tell on that but at this point the court has sent him a message — one perhaps other struggling dictators in the regime might keep in mind:
An Egyptian court has fined ousted president Hosni Mubarak and two of his former ministers $90 million for shutting down telecommunication services during the country’s popular uprising earlier this year.
The court ruled Saturday that Mubarak, former Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly were guilty of “damaging” Egypt’s economy after ordering the shutdown of the country’s Internet and telephone services in January as thousands of anti-government protesters took to the streets.
Mubarak must pay about $33 million, while Nazif faces a fine of nearly $7 million. Adly has the heaviest fine of more than $50 million.
Mobile operator Vodafone said in January that it and other telecom companies working in Egypt had no option but to comply with a government order to suspend services during the peak of the anti-government demonstrations.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.