Palestinian in diplomatic dodge In late March, el-Ezbekia Court of Misdemeanour is going to try a Palestinian man accused of threatening a police officer and stealing the diplomatic number plates from a car belonging to the British Embassy. The story started when a man called Mohamed Naguib, who works in security at the British Embassy, was walking along 26th July Street and spotted a car with Embassy number plates being driven by someone he didn't recognise. The driver parked the vehicle nearby, close to the Supreme Court in Isa'af. Mohamed told a police officer, who walked over to the car and asked to see the driver's licence. The man pulled out a gun and pointed it at the officer, who managed to overpower and arrest him. The Palestinian gave his name as Abdel-Rahman, who'd been living in Egypt since 2006. He said he'd rented the car in Alexandria and didn't want to return it. Abdel-Rahman then stole the diplomatic number plates from a British Embassy vehicle parked in Zamalek, in order to disguise the rental car. The gun he used to threaten the officer turned out to be a stolen starting pistol. (Al-Messa Al-Osbouia) Quack cashes in A young man with an industrial diploma decided to pass himself off as a psychiatrist with a doctorate. He opened a clinic, in a flat below the flat where he lived, offering to treat people with psychiatric and nervous problems, as well as patients with physical ailments. The quack would give them a medical examination for free, but then they'd have to pay for the ointments, creams and medicines, all of dubious provenance, as well as mantras that he told them to recite to ‘ward off evil'. Each patient paid around LE200 (about $35) for these accessories. The charlatan and his two assistants were making fantastic money at the clinic in el-Bassateen, southern Cairo, if you bear in mind that they were treating about 100 people every day. Their good fortune came to an end, when the Vice Squad raided the premises and arrested the ‘psychiatrist', Osama Ahmed, and his two sidekicks, Sayyed Khalaf and Mohamed Mashwadi (both 27). Osama claimed he could cure slipped discs, impotence and demonic possession. (Al-Akhbar) ‘I'd like my kebabs well-done' Fire erupted in a big kebab shop in the Nouri district of Fayoum. It blazed for three hours before the Fire Brigade were able to put it out, preventing it spreading to neighbouring buildings. It is thought that an electrical short circuit sparked the conflagration, which caused damage estimated at around LE250,000. At least the kebabs were cooked through. (Al-Messa) Happy birthday, Mido! An English lass recently stole £46,000 (around LE400,000) from Egypt's international star Ahmed Hossam ‘Mido', currently playing for English Premier Division outfit West Ham United, after she managed to get hold of his credit card details. She blew the cash, among other things, on dental treatment, a holiday with her friends at an expensive hotel in Dubai and fancy clothes. The police in England said they are not sure how Daryl Louise Harrison, 21, from Salford near Manchester in the north of Bngland, got her hands on the cash, but it appears that she carried out the fraud via Internet using a mailing address in Bury (another town near Manchester). What hampered investigations was the fact that Mido didn't discover what had happened until he checked his bank statements when he came home to Egypt for a holiday. Daryl admitted at her trial in Bolton Crown Court committing fraud on 10 occasions between April and July 2009. She is also suspected of other offences. The interesting thing about this case is that Mido, who used to play for Zamalek, has, apparently, never met this attractive young thief, who lives in Moor Lane in Kersal. Daryl, who has a previous conviction for swindling £6,000 out of her own mother, has been remanded in custody, while police will try and recover some of the stolen money. Mido, who is on loan at Upton Park from Middlesbrough, made the news recently for pocketing a paltry £1,000 per week (paltry for some!) from the Hammers. The player who stars in England's top flight wasn't selected for the Egyptian team that recently won the African Cup of Nations for a record three times in a row. Despite the fact that he is still a young man, Ahmed Hossam has played for a bewildering number of clubs since his debut for Zamalek in 1999, when he was only 16: Gent of Belgium, Dutch side Ajax, Celta Vigo, Marseille, Roma, London team Tottenham Hotspur and Wigan Athletic, not to mention Middlesborough and of course West Ham, where he started on four-month loan on 1st February. It only remains for us to wish this talented striker, born in Cairo on February 23, 1983, a very happy 27th birthday today. (Al-Masry Al-Youm, Manchester Evening News and the Daily Mail) Horror for hairdresser A hairdresser in el-Bassateen suffered appalling injuries when her sweetheart poured boiling water over her, after they'd quarrelled because his family wouldn't let him marry her. (Normally the problems start when the girl's family won't let her sweetheart marry her). It took her a fortnight to die of her injuries. The charges against the suspect have been changed from attempted murder to premeditated murder. (Al-Akhbar) Impatient and impotent A man from Alexandria burst into the clinic of a doctor in Tanta, el-Gharbia Governorate and doused the place and the physician himself in petrol and threatened to put a match to it. He was angry because the doctor had been treating him for impotence for the past ten months, but without success. Thankfully, his intended victim managed to talk him out of it. Police arrested the suspect, Mohamed Hassan, who got married two years ago. He admitted entering the clinic with a jerry can of petrol intending to torch the premises and the specialist who'd been treating him. The surgery is right next door to the police station, so detectives didn't have far to go to arrest Mohamed, who's now got even more problems. Perhaps he should have been a little more patient. (Al-Wafd) I'm perfect! A middle-aged Israeli was recently arrested on suspicion of committing many crimes of a sexual nature, including rape. The 60-year-old suspect, Goel Ratzon, is thought to have married 23 women who bore him 59 children. His story appears to be a confusing tale of lust for power (and something else) and deception. A court in Tel Aviv has accused him of enslaving his wives and children, forcing them to gratify his sexual and financial needs. All his wives had his name and picture tattooed on their arms, while the names of all his children are derived from his. Goel, a bearded gentleman with long hair whom one can perhaps be forgiven for describing as looking a little strange, married his first wife in 1972. He then waited till 1980 to marry his second wife. But it wasn't till 1991 that he married his third wife and the ball really started rolling, as he tied the knot with 20 more women after that. The suspect had a nasty knack of being able to dominate his wives, controlling their lives, their desires and their thoughts. He cut them off from the outside world and it appears that their only function was to bear him children. It is thought that he may have raped two of his daughters and sexually assaulted a third, as well as violating four other girls, who weren't related to him by blood. Goel, who kept his women in squalid conditions and lived off their earnings, told one Israeli newspaper (which reported that he actually had more than 30 wives) that his relations with his wives were based on love and respect. One of his neighbours in the Hativka neighbourhood of Tel Aviv told another Israeli newspaper that his wives made a living by cleaning people's homes, but they were not permitted to work for men. Another neighbour said that Goel had learnt hypnosis in India, which he used to control his women, while a British newspaper described this Svengali-like character as ‘Israel's Josef Fritzl', adding that he was able to get away with it for so long because his wives were registered as single mothers, which meant he couldn't be prosecuted under Israeli polygamy laws. Perhaps the most extraordinary thing he said was on a TV documentary in 2009, when he claimed, "I am perfect… I have all the qualities a woman wants." (Al-Gomhuria, The Jerusalem Post, Yedioth Ahranoth, The Times of London) Back to hospital A mentally disturbed young man tried to kill his family, when he overheard his brother talking to their paternal uncle on the phone about returning him to the psychiatric hospital where he'd been a patient. He attacked his brother, sister and parents, killing the brother and injuring the others, who tried to save the victim, 27-year-old Mahmoud Hani, an English-language teacher. Mahmoud was stabbed to death at the family home in Giza by Mohamed (44), his disturbed elder brother. His family wanted to take him back to hospital, because his fits had been getting worse. It's pretty obvious where he's going now. (Al-Masry Al-Youm) Undemocratic soup doctors If you're looking for a healthy soup, you're just as likely to find it in a clinic as in a restaurant these days. In certain clinics, doctors put lettuce, onions, carrots, chickpeas and all manner of other tasty ingredients into their delicious, mouthwatering soups. You can't really describe these soup doctors as being democratic, as, although they prepare a variety of different soups, the patients themselves cannot choose what they want – the physicians do it for them. There's sardine soup for patients with obesity; ‘cocktail' soup, rich in green vegetables, raspberries and mint, for people suffering from hepatitis C; and chickpea soup for activating the liver. If you've got hepatitis B, you're likely to be served a dish of soup full of baby carrots, ginger, onions, lettuce, salt, pepper, cardamom and chicken stock. This soup for hepatitis B sounds particularly tasty. Anyway, apologies for making you all hungry this week! (Al-Ahram)
