The owner of the "death ferry" has received a seven-year jail term. Will the verdict finally appease public anger, asks Mona El-Nahhas "Long live justice" was the shout which shook the Safaga Misdemeanours Appeals Court on 11 March when Mamdouh Ismail, owner of Al-Salam ferry which sank in the Red Sea in February 2006, killing 1033 and injuring 377, was sentenced to seven years imprisonment with hard labour after being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and negligence. The Appeals Court sentenced Ismail in absentia. He fled to London shortly after being ordered to stand trial. Nabil Shalabi and Mamdouh Orabi, Ismail's assistants at the Al-Salam Company, each received a three-year jail term. The court also upheld an earlier ruling against the sixth defendant, Salah Gomaa, captain of the Saint Catherine ferry, sentenced to six- months and fined LE10,000 for failing to come to the assistance of the Al-Salam ferry. Last week's ruling defied expectations that Ismail, an influential member of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and an appointed member of the Shura Council, would not be convicted. The judgement came eight months after Ismail was acquitted by a first degree court of any responsibility for the tragedy, a verdict that resulted in widespread public outrage. Prosecutor-general Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud appealed against the initial acquittal four hours after it was announced, arguing that the court had ignored much of the evidence presented by his office. The ruling also flew in the face of the 600 page report compiled by a parliamentary fact-finding committee formed to investigate the circumstances surrounding the sinking of the ferry. The committee had stressed that the ferry failed to meet minimum safety requirements and concluded that Ismail was largely responsible for the death of the passengers. "The ruling really pleased me," Hamdi El-Tahhan, chairman of the People's Assembly Transport Committee and head of the fact-finding committee, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "But this is not the end. Ismail is only one member of the network of corruption behind the tragedy. There are others who remain free." Lawyers of the victims' relatives, while praising the ruling, said that without Ismail's arrest it remained meaningless. "What is really important now is to detain Ismail," Anwar Esmat El-Sadat, a member of the victims' defence council, told the Weekly. Political and legal activists welcomed the ruling, which they said would go some way to restoring public confidence in the judiciary. Hafez Abu Seada, secretary-general of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, called on the prosecutor-general to issue a red bulletin, which would allow Interpol to arrest Ismail in London and hand him over to the Egyptian authorities. "I do not expect the ruling to be implemented immediately. What I am certain of is that the prosecutor-general will take the issue seriously," said Seada. While the UK has no extradition treaty with Egypt El-Sadat does not view this as a major obstacle in the way of Ismail's arrest. Sources close to the victims' defence council have revealed that legal activists are already cooperating with human rights organisations in London to assess the legal measures necessary to detain Ismail. Ismail and his two assistants, all of whom were sentenced in absentia, will, once arrested, have the right to appeal to the prosecutor-general and ask for a re-trial.
