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Al-Ahram Weekly 14 - 20 October 1999 Issue No. 451 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 14 - 20 October 1999 Issue No. 451
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Books Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters MPs' month in the dock
By Essam El-DinThe Giza State Security Court resumed last week the trial of MP Omar Abu Steit on six charges ranging from hooliganism and the use of force to the possession of unlicensed weapons. In last Thursday's session, the court decided to postpone to the first of November the hearing of eight defence witnesses. The hearings began on Saturday 2 October.
Abu Steit, 68, was put on trial, along with eight others, following orders issued by Prosecutor-General Maher Abdel-Wahed. Following a decision to strip Abu Steit, a member of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and a deputy for the Upper Egypt governorate of Sohag, of his immunity at a stormy meeting of parliament's Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee on 8 August, Abdel-Wahed ordered that Abu Steit be remanded in custody for four days. Thirty additional days were tacked on later.
On Saturday, Abu Steit's lawyer asked the court to release him on the grounds of ill-health and alleged that Abu Steit had been subjected to physical and psychological pressure while in prison. Abu Steit and the eight others are accused of using force to evict the residents of an apartment building in Giza. The lawyer claimed that the facts had been manipulated by Saad Arafa, a Giza police officer. The lawyer, who asked for a copy of the police report, said that Abu Steit had not been on good terms with Arafa ever since the latter served in Abu Steit's hometown of Al-Baliana in Sohag Governorate.
A teary-eyed Abu Steit said that as an MP and a member of the People's Assembly's Committee of Defence and National Security, he had participated in the deliberations of a law passed last year to fight hooliganism. "It is truly ironic that I am now standing trial under the law which I and my colleagues debated in parliament. For your information, I rejected the law in the form it was passed by parliament because, the way I saw it, it failed to define in clear terms what exactly are acts of thuggery," Abu Steit told the court.
An informed parliamentary source, who asked not to be identified, told Al-Ahram Weekly that if convicted, Abu Steit could face up to five years in prison with or without hard labour.
Next week, the trial of Mohamed Sadek Okasha, NDP deputy for the district of Al-Saff in Giza Governorate, will also stand trial on charges of issuing a LE1 million cheque that bounced and submitting false documents showing he is the proprietor of a LE35 million tourist hotel in Giza. Following a decision by the Legislative Committee to drop his immunity, Okasha was taken into custody for 10 days, later extended to 45 days extra. The parliamentary source told the Weekly that Okasha would stand trial in the Court of Misdemeanours on charges of issuing a worthless cheque, and the Criminal Court on charges of submitting false documents. For the first charge, the source said, Okasha, if convicted, could be sentenced to up to three years in prison. For the second charge, Okasha could face up to five years in prison with hard labour or 10 years in prison without hard labour.
On 24 October, 25 suspects, including four MPs, will also face a new trial in the four-year-old saga known as "the case of the loan deputies". Following six weeks of questioning, chief investigating magistrate Mohsen Sobhi ordered the suspects be put on trial before another bench of the Supreme State Security Court on charges of profiteering and facilitating the illegal acquisition of public funds. Sobhi ordered that 15 suspects, including MPs Tawfik Abdu Ismail, Khaled Mahmoud and Mahmoud Azzam, be kept in custody. A fourth MP, Ibrahim Aglan, along with three other suspects, have gone out of circulation.
In the original trial, which lasted for over two years, 32 suspects -- 12 bankers and 20 businessmen -- faced charges of misappropriation of public funds. But the trial was interrupted in June after prosecutors pressed additional charges. Sobhi was then commissioned to open a new investigation. On 24 August, he struck out six suspects from the list of the accused, thereby dropping them from the prosecution's additional charges of profiteering and the illegal acquisition of public funds. All 32 suspects, however, must face trial on the original charge of misappropriation of public funds. They are accused of committing financial irregularities involving more than LE1 billion.
If convicted, the suspects, including the four MPs, could face several years in prison with hard labour and might be forced to return more than LE1 billion.
