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Al-Ahram Weekly 12 - 18 August 1999 Issue No. 442 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 12 - 18 August 1999 Issue No. 442
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Books Features Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters 'Secret' fury in the House
By Gamal Essam El-DinA large number of MPs have been up in arms against Chief Investigating Judge Mohsen Sobhi's decision three weeks ago to remand Tawfik Abdou Ismail, a former chairman of the Planning and Budget Committee and a former minister of tourism and aviation, in custody for 15 days. Ismail is one of four MPs facing a trial dubbed by the local press as the case of the "loan deputies".
On Sunday, more than 20 MPs, most of them representing Upper Egyptian governorates, used a meeting held by parliament's Legislative and Constitutional Committee to lash out at the prosecutor-general's request to drop the parliamentary immunity of two MPs so that they can be interrogated for alleged financial malpractices and involvement in acts of thuggery. The deputies charged that the prosecutor's office had been instructed to use tough and arbitrary measures against them and "even distort their image in the eyes of the public, particularly since the next parliamentary elections are drawing near."
El-Omda De'bes, a ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) deputy for the Upper Egyptian governorate of Assiut, claimed that the prosecutor's office had, of late, adopted a predetermined strategy to put behind bars as many deputies as possible. "If the prosecutor's office, in doing so, is trying to give the impression that it is launching a fierce war against corruption, why has it refrained so far from putting on trial Raga'a El-Arabi for assisting Aleyya El-Ayyouti to flee abroad?" De'bes asked. He alluded to the controversial decision by former prosecutor-general Raga'a El-Arabi -- who was forced into retirement at the beginning of July -- to give a travel permit to El-Ayyouti. Fifty-one-year-old El-Ayyouti, who was the vice-president of the Nile Bank, used the permit to flee the country and dodge trial in the "loan deputies" case.
The two MPs who were stripped of their parliamentary immunity are Omar Abu Steit, an NDP representative for the Upper Egyptian governorate of Sohag, and Mohamed Sadek Okasha, an NDP member for the Giza governorate.
Abu Steit was accused two weeks ago of recruiting seven "thugs" to evict by force the residents of an apartment building he had bought in Giza. Abu Steit himself was even accused of shooting at the building's residents. He submitted a request last week to People's Assembly Speaker Fathi Sorour, asking permission to testify at the prosecutor's office without forfeiting immunity.
To Abu Steit's dismay and fury, Maher Abdel-Wahed, the prosecutor-general, insisted that his immunity must be dropped.
Abdel-Wahed's position was severely criticised by Upper Egyptian deputies at the committee meeting, which was supposed to be secret in accordance with Sorour's instructions. Abu Steit argued that Abdel-Wahed's insistence to have his immunity dropped was aimed at remanding him in custody for 15 days. "My request to simply testify was rejected because they [the prosecutor's office] aim to defame deputies by putting them behind bars. It is a premeditated trend and we all have to resist it," Abu Steit said.
He even lashed out at the NDP for its failure to protect its deputies against defamation. "The party seems to be reluctant to protect its deputies and it does not have a good newspaper to defend its deputies," Abu Steit charged. He went as far as to accuse the police department at Al-Omraniya district in the governorate of Giza of manipulating the facts of the incident. He alleged that he was not on good terms with an officer there since the officer had served in his native governorate of Sohag. "He made use of this incident to hit back at me," Abu Steit claimed.
A large number of Upper Egyptian deputies rallied behind Abu Steit, accusing the prosecutor's office of launching a malicious campaign against parliament as a whole.
In a bid to allay their fears, Mohamed Moussa, the committee chairman, argued that the prosecutor's request to drop Abu Steit's immunity did not mean that he would be taken into custody eventually. "I think it is better for us to approve the prosecutor's request because he will never be able to interrogate Abu Steit unless his parliamentary immunity is dropped. This was the case with the loan deputies and with former economy minister Mustafa El-Said," Moussa said.
As for Okasha, he was charged with issuing a bad cheque to the value of LE650,000. This was the second time in two weeks that Okasha was stripped of his immunity. Last week, he was accused of issuing a bad cheque to the value of LE1 million.
At the beginning of the meeting, Moussa announced that parliamentary reporters would be barred from covering committee meetings devoted to dropping the immunity of deputies. He said the decision was taken at the request of many deputies who complained that press coverage of committee debates on the involvement of some deputies in corruption tarnished the image of all deputies.
During the committee's Sunday meeting, however, many deputies assured parliamentary correspondents that none of them had requested that they be kept out of these meetings. The deputies were even anxious to provide reporters with details of the committee's debates.
For his part, Sorour announced that the meetings devoted to debating matters concerning the membership of deputies should be held behind closed doors. "The decisions of the committee will be made public, but the debates and deliberations should be kept secret because they touch on highly sensitive and private matters," he said.
