Spain freezes assets of Mubarak associate

Spanish police said Friday they had frozen more than 30 million euros in banks and nine buildings after arresting a close associate of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak on fraud charges. The detainee, arrested along with his son and a suspected frontman, was accused of money laundering, fraud, bribery and corruption, police said in a statement. Police said they froze suspected illicit gains of 32.5 million euros ($46 million) in bank accounts, two buildings in Madrid and seven in the southern resort of Marbella, a popular destination for wealthy people, worth a total of about 10 million euros, and five luxury cars. Spanish authorities identified the suspect only by his initials HSF and said he had links to Mubarak. But in Cairo, an Egyptian security official said Thursday the man was Hussein Salem, accused of corruption in a gas deal and of giving properties to Mubarak and his family in return for huge swathes of land in Sinai. Spanish police alleged that the suspect and his family had received more than 17 million euros in funds he had obtained illegally in Egypt.