Egypt’s former agriculture minister Waly passes away at 89

Egypt’s former Minister of Agriculture Youssef Waly died on Saturday at the age of 89 years old.

Waly, a graduate of the Faculty of Agriculture, served as minister of agriculture from 1984 to 2004.

He also served as deputy prime minister and deputy chairman of ousted president Hosni Mubarak’s now-dissolved National Democratic Party.

In 2018, an Egyptian Criminal Court annulled a 2011 decision to freeze the assets of Waly and his family after accepting his appeal. The decision went into effect in 2019.

The prosecution had frozen Waly’s assets following the January 2011 Revolution in what was dubbed the agriculture minister’s corruption case.

Several corruption cases against Wali were dismissed. The latest, in 2017, involved Hussein Salem, a Mubarak-era business tycoon.

Salem reconciled with the government in 2016 following a deal in which he and his family gave up EGP 5.3 billion, reportedly 75 percent of their wealth, to have corruption cases against him dropped.

In February 2017, an Egyptian court dismissed corruption charges against Salem and Waly, in a case in which Waly, in office at the time, was accused of selling Salem 36 acres of land at Luxor’s Bayadeya Island for an undervalued price.

Waly was sentenced to 10 years in jail in the case in 2012. His sentence was overturned in 2013.