Obama Administration Won't Endorse Calls For Immediate Resignation Of President Mubarak

The Guardian:

Mubarak's fortune could be as much as $70 billion according to analysis by Middle East experts, with much of his wealth in British and Swiss banks or tied up in real estate in London, New York, Los Angeles and along expensive tracts of the Red Sea coast.


After 30 years as president and many more as a senior military official, Mubarak has had access to investment deals that have generated hundreds of millions of pounds in profits. Most of those gains have been taken offshore and deposited in secret bank accounts or invested in upmarket homes and hotels.


According to a report last year in the Arabic newspaper Al Khabar, Mubarak has properties in Manhattan and exclusive Beverly Hills addresses on Rodeo Drive.


His sons, Gamal and Alaa, are also billionair­es. A protest outside Gamal's ostentatio­us home at 28 Wilton Place in Belgravia, central London, highlighte­d the family's appetite for western trophy assets.
Amaney Jamal, a political science professor at Princeton University­, said the estimate of $40 billion-70 billion was comparable with the vast wealth of leaders in other Gulf countries.


"The business ventures from his military and government service accumulate­d to his personal wealth," she told ABC news. "There was a lot of corruption in this regime and stifling of public resources for personal gain.


"This is the pattern of other Middle Eastern dictators so their wealth will not be taken during a transition­. These leaders plan on this."


Al Khabar said it understood the Mubaraks kept much of their wealth offshore in the Swiss bank UBS and the Bank of Scotland, part of Lloyds Banking Group, although this informatio­n could be at least 10 years old.

Mubarak needs to stand trial.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost