20110513
REUTERS

Egypt's anti-graft agency said on Friday it had ordered former President Hosni Mubarak and his wife detained as part of a probe into charges they used their influence to amass wealth unlawfully.

Investigators interrogated Mubarak, who has denied wrongdoing, for more than three hours on Thursday evening in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, and questioned his wife Suzanne on Friday, the state news agency MENA reported.

It was the first detention order for the ousted president's wife, although the public prosecutor had already ordered Mubarak detained on April 13 as part of a separate investigation into charges of abuse of public funds and the killing of protesters.

Some media reports have suggested the Mubarak family's wealth may total billions of dollars, a major rallying point for anti-government protests in a country where around 40 percent of the population lives on less than $2 per day.

"I expected it, yet it still feels good to hear it," Mohamed Ahmed, a 23-year-old banker, told Reuters in Cairo after hearing about the order.

Mass demonstrations forced Mubarak to step down on February 11, and later protests put pressure on the country's interim military rulers to allow investigations into the family's wealth.

Some Egyptians have been unhappy about the treatment of Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for three decades. Dozens of demonstrators gathered at a major Cairo mosque on Friday saying the deposed ruler should not be put on trial, MENA reported.

The anti-graft agency, known as the Illicit Gains Authority, ordered that Mubarak's wife be detained for 15 days. Security and judicial sources said she would be transferred to a Cairo prison.