Former Petroleum Minister Sameh Fahmy was responsible for setting the preferential rates quoted in Egypt's natural gas export deal with Israel, according to the head of a panel appointed by the Public Prosecution to review the contract. Panel head Alya al-Mahdy told the Cairo Criminal Court Wednesday that Egypt's intelligence services were not involved in setting prices for gas exports to Israel. Fahmy and five other ministry officials have been on trial since May for allegedly squandering public funds and profiting from the export deal by selling gas below international rates, causing Egypt to lose US$714 million. The court postponed its next trial session to 14 November to add more witnesses and translate the English-written contracts and other documents relevant to the case. "The procedures adopted by the Petroleum Ministry with the exporting company East Mediterranean Gas (EMG), owned by fugitive businessman Hussein Salem, include violations, most notably agreeing to the company's requests without negotiating the prices it had offered," Mahdy said in her testimony. Former intelligence chief Omar Suleiman did not play a part in setting the price, Mahdy told the court. Al-Masry Al-Youm had published several official letters between Suleiman and Fahmy dated from 2000 to 2004, which unveiled Suleiman's directives concerning the gas export deal and revealed that EMG negotiated for the Egyptian side. But Mahdy said those letters did not indicate a specific price for the gas. Translated from the Arabic Edition
