U.N. offers to help recover Egypt's assets

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UNITED NATIONS, May 1 (UPI) -- The United Nations has offered to help facilitate the return of Egyptian fugitives and assets taken from the country during last year's popular uprising.

Hussein Hassan of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said the United Nations could provide the Egyptian government with expertise and legal support, Ahram Online reported.

"We are absolutely ready to mediate to help Egypt accelerate the efforts to recover its stolen assets," Hassan said.

But Hassan, who heads the United Nations' anti-corruption operations in the Middle East and North Africa, said the international organization couldn't intervene in legal cases involving money or fugitives that are before foreign courts.

"We will ask for any help and turn every single stone to recover Egypt's monies," Assem el-Gohary, Egypt's assistant justice minister and head of the country's Illicit Gains Department, said. "These monies belong to Egypt's future generations, not only to this generation, and nobody has the right to concede them."

The United Kingdom and Switzerland are among countries that have frozen funds registered to ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Among fugitives are ex-Mubarak regime officials such as Youssef Boutros Ghali, who was sentenced to prison by a Cairo court but now lives free overseas, Ahram Online reported.