CAIRO — Egypt's state news agency says prosecutors have charged one of deposed leader Hosni Mubarak's most trusted men with corruption.

MENA quoted a judicial official as saying on Wednesday that Safwat el-Sherif, Mubarak's minister of information for nearly two decades, illegally appropriated villas, lands, and apartments originally owned by the state.

The official said Sherif had also received gifts worth millions of Egyptian pounds from chief editors in the state media in return for keeping them in their positions.

The charges are the latest allegation to emerge about Mubarak's regime, whose reputation for corruption was one of the main drivers behind the uprising that forced him from power last year.

El-Sherif, the official says, will have to pay 900 million Egyptian pounds in fines — nearly 1.5 million dollars.