Egypt’s prisons authority has received a written request from Alaa Mubarak, the elder son of the country’s former president Hosni Mubarak, asking to be allowed to donate money to the families of the victims of the recent train accident in Assiut.
Around 50 children died when a school bus carrying 67 kindergarten pupils, aged between four and six, was hit by a train as it drove over a railway crossing in the Assiut village of Manfalout on Saturday morning.
Mubarak has offered donations of LE25,000 for each family who lost a child in the accident and LE12000 for each child injured, state-run daily newspaper Al-Ahram reported on Thursday. The money will come from the accounts of a charitable association that was set up in the name of Alaa’s late son Mohamed.
An official source from the interior ministry told Ahram Online on Thursday that the Egyptian illicit gains authority would check Alaa’s request, as the association’s bank accounts are currently under restrictions, and the funds cannot be used.
Alaa is currently in Cairo’s Tora prison along with his brother Gamal; both men are facing charges of violating stock market and central bank rules to make unlawful profits, dealing in shares of Al-Watany Bank of Egypt.
It was reported last year by Akhbar El-Yom newspaper that the Mohamed Alaa Mubarak Charity Association was one of a number of Egyptian organisations that had received foreign funding. The report stated that the association had received donations from Oman and UAE which came to LE86 million ($15.5 million) in total.
