16 - 22 May 2002
Issue No.586
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 16 - 22 May 2002 Issue No.586 |
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Spy or psychotic?
A MAN ACCUSED of spying for Israel and harming Egypt's national security is mentally unstable, the defendant's attorney told a state security court on Monday.
Lawyer Mustafa Amin asked the Alexandria court to help him learn more about the past of his client, Magdi Anwar Mohamed Tawfiq. Questioned during Monday's hearing about the charges -- making contacts with foreign intelligence to harm national security and falsifying official papers -- Tawfiq, 52, pleaded innocent. He said he had only sent a fax to the Israeli consulate in Alexandria to obtain some addresses.
Tawfiq was arrested after allegedly faxing a letter to the Israeli consular office offering to cooperate with Mossad, Israel's intelligence service. Prosecutors have said the originals of the faxes were found in Tawfiq's home.
Tawfiq confessed to forging papers indicating he worked as a diplomat at the Egyptian embassy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He told reporters he had worked in the Congolese republic for four years until being fired for contacting European intelligence services. He also claimed to have worked with the CIA at that time.
Investigators determined Tawfiq had worked in the Congo for an Egyptian- African cooperation fund affiliated with the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and had been dismissed.
Tawfiq told the court on Monday he had contacted the Israeli consulate to facilitate contact with the international court hearing the case of bombing of the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and the World Jewish Congress. He claimed the Libyans indicted in the case were innocent and that he had information about the real bombers.
He also claimed to have important information about the UTA DC-10 that exploded over the Sahara in Niger in 1989, killing all 170 people on board. The French airliner was en route from the Republic of Congo to Paris.
Amin questioned Tawfiq's mental capacity and asked how a man with a technical school diploma could be hired by the Foreign Ministry or could know such critical information as he claimed. Amin requested the court double-check Tawfiq's history with the Foreign Ministry and Passport Control.
Radio solidarity
EGYPTIAN radio has initiated a fund- raising campaign for the Palestinians, reports Hanan Sabra. The campaign, aired this week by all radio stations, is expected to end on Saturday. The final day will include performances by Egyptian and Arab singers who will donate their performance fees to the campaign. Charges of local and international phone calls to Egyptian radio from listeners will also go to the Palestinians.
An auction is to be held in which personal items belonging to prominent figures will go on the block. These include a pen of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Naguib Mahfouz, a microphone that belonged to the late popular singer Abdel- Halim Hafez, an oud (oriental lute) belonging to musician Ammar El-Sheraie, and a signed copy of a book by Nobel prize winner in chemistry Ahmed Zuweil.
On Saturday the Grand Imam of Al- Azhar Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi and other Islamic figures will call on Muslims after each prayer, which will be radio transmitted, to give donations.
"Radio announcers will interview some Arab leaders during the day to talk about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Among them will be Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Lebanese President Amin Lahoud," Inas Gohar, head of the Middle East Station and general organiser for the campaign, told Al-Ahram Weekly.
Cultural appointment
FAROUK El-BAZ, a prominent Egyptian geologist at Boston University, has been appointed a scientific consultant to the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni made the appointment to put to use El-Baz's scientific experience in the field of remote sensing towards locating undiscovered archaeological treasures still hidden under Egypt's deserts.
El-Baz's SCA agenda is expected to include the drawing up of a technical restoration plan for Khufu's (Cheops) second solar boat -- which is still buried in sand -- and to prepare a study for the construction of two new museums for Khufu's solar boats on the Giza plateau.
Unconventional dogma
ON TUESDAY Prosecutor General Maher Abdel-Wahed referred 21 Egyptians for trial on charges of defaming Islam by forming a religious group with unconventional beliefs.
The suspects are accused of "abusing the Islamic religion, propagating extremist ideas with the aim of provoking dissent and deriding Islam by advancing ideas and beliefs contrary to established religious doctrine."
According to prosecutors, the group held regular meetings at the home of their leader, Sayed Tolba Abu-Ali, a 48- year-old manager at Egypt's Atomic Energy Authority, who is accused of claiming to be a modern prophet and possessing miraculous healing powers.
Tolba's followers include women, civil servants, doctors and owners of factories in the Cairo working class neighbourhood of Shubra El-Kheima, where they were arrested on 24 March. All the suspects except four have been detained since their arrest. They will be tried before a State Security Felony Court starting on 29 May.
Compiled by Shaden Shehab
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