Hosni Mubarak, the former Egyptian president, has appeared in court and denied charges that he stole public funds in one of the four cases against him.

The former president, who was removed from power in 2011 following a popular uprising, appeared in a Cairo court on Wednesday with his two sons, who are accused of taking bribes.

The session was broadcast live on Egyptian television, and Mubarak and four other defendants appeared in court in the same glass panelled cage that the former president Mohamed Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders appeared last week.

All of the defendants in the case pleaded not guilty.

Mubarak, 85, and his sons Alaa and Gamal are accused of taking more than $14.37m originally allocated for presidential palaces, among other charges.

At the start of the session presiding judge Osama Shaheen read out the charges.

"Gamal Mohamed Hosni al-Sayed Mubarak and Alaa Mohamed Hosni al-Sayed Mubarak, you are both accused of being accessories to the crime of the first defendant through the means of assessing and agreeing to committing the crimes related to not paying the true value of the work carried out on real estate belonging to you and instead paying them out of the state budget. What do you say?"

Facing a retrial

Mubarak was sentenced to life in prison in 2012 for complicity in the killing of demonstrators in the uprising. He successfully appealed and is facing a retrial on those charges.

He is also accused in two other cases of corruption that have yet to come to court.

Mubarak was released from jail last year. He is being kept under house arrest at a military hospital in the Cairo suburb of Maadi.

Mubarak's successor, Morsi, served as president for a year before he was removed by the army in July after mass protests against his rule.

Morsi is also currently facing trial, over charges that include conspiring against the state, inciting violence and a mass jail break in 2011.

Egypt is pushing through with an army plan that could see new presidential and parliamentary elections this year.

PHOTO CAPTION

Mubarak, 85, and his sons are accused of taking more than $14.37m originally allocated for presidential palaces [AP]

Aljazeera