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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 June 1999 Issue No. 435 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 June 1999 Issue No. 435
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Interview Travel Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters Normalisation on trial
By Gamal Essam El-DinAfter a one-month delay, the Cairo Criminal Court resumed hearing a libel suit brought by Youssef Wali, deputy prime minister and minister of agriculture, against three journalists and a cartoonist with Al-Shaab, mouthpiece of the Islamist-oriented Labour Party. The resumption followed a decision by the Court of Appeals to reject Al-Shaab's request to have the Criminal Court disqualified from hearing the case.
For four days starting Saturday, the Criminal Court listened to the testimony of 20 defence witnesses. The court, in response to a request by Al-Shaab's attorneys, also agreed to summon as witnesses 14 high-ranking officials at the Agriculture Ministry. The officials are alleged by Al-Shaab to be Wali's "basic tools in normalising relations with Israel". They include Saad Nassar, chairman of the Agriculture Research Centre, Fouad Abou-Hadab, coordinator of the Joint Egypt-Israel Agricultural Committee, and Ali Abu-Ghazia, chairman of the Federation of Exporters of Horticultural Crops.
For the second time, Al-Shaab's lawyers asked the court to summon Wali as a witness. Chief Justice Hassib El-Batrawi promised to consider the request, resulting in a heated exchange between Wali's and Al-Shaab's lawyers.
Wali's lawyer, No'man Goma'a, deputy chairman of the liberal Wafd Party, argued that the Criminal Procedures Law prohibits public officials, such as Wali, from testifying before courts, for fear of divulging secret information about their work. He also said that the request of Al-Shaab's lawyers was intended to expose Wali to more defamation.
Al-Shaab lawyers, Mahmoud El-Sakka, Atef El-Banna and Said El-Gammal, all members of the Wafd's Higher Committee, contended that Wali's testimony is crucial to the case. El-Gammal argued that the Criminal Procedures Law cannot be invoked because no secret information is at stake. Even if the case touched on secret matters, the court could take precautionary action, he said.
On Saturday, the court listened to the testimony of three witnesses who said that Wali's efforts at normalisation of relations with Israel was made at the expense of national security and public health. Mohamed Hossam Reda, an agronomist at the Ismailia agricultural department, claimed that Wali's policies of importing large quantities of Israeli seeds and pesticides caused large areas of tomato, cucumber and citrus crops to be infested with disease. "We later learned that this can cause cancer. And we informed the agriculture under-secretary so that action may be taken," Reda said.
Erian Nassif, chairman of the agricultural committee of the leftist Tagammu Party and a former inspector at the Agriculture Ministry until the late 1970s, said Wali did not only bring Egyptian agricultural policies under American "hegemony", but also took personal credit for stepping up the pace of normalising relations with Israel. Nassif claimed that Wali's import of Israeli seeds and pesticides was responsible for the deterioration of the health of millions of Egyptians.
The court also listened to the testimony of Ali Haggag, a retired air force officer and owner of a fish farm in the Mariot valley, west of Alexandria. He claimed Wali had failed to protect the valley, which is devoted to fish farming, against pollution caused by the Sumed oil pipeline that passes through the area. This caused damage worth LE2.2 billion, Haggag claimed. But he did not specify how this was related to Wali's normalisation policies.
On Sunday, the court listened to the testimony of 15 farmers who hail from the Fayoum Governorate, Wali's birthplace. They all claimed that the Wali family, invoking a land-rent liberalisation law that took effect in October 1997, used harsh security measures to evict them.
On Monday, Galal Gharib, a former member of parliament, alleged before the court that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) paid Wali and his aides millions of dollars "in return for their policies which led to the deterioration of such basic crops as cotton and wheat. These policies served American and Israeli cotton varieties which replaced the Egyptian product on international markets," he said. Gharib also claimed that the use of imported Israeli seeds, hormones and pesticides led to the destruction of 50,000 feddans of potatoes in the Fayoum Governorate.
Magdi Hussein, editor of Al-Shaab, told Al-Ahram Weekly that the week's hearings went in their favour.
