The Cairo Criminal Court released former minister of housing Ahmed Al-Maghrabi on Monday. Al-Maghrabi faces charges of wasting EGP 4bn of public money by allocating one million square metres of land to Al-Futtaim Group in the Fifth Settlement, according to state-owned Al-Ahram.

The court rejected an appeal submitted by the prosecution against Al-Maghrabi’s release.

The former minister had been arrested for 15 days pending investigation.

Al-Maghrabi was cleared in May of squandering public money and illegally seizing state-owned lands worth EGP 25m.