Attorney-General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud ordered prosecutors to begin investigating a new German bribery case in response to requests by lawyer Samir Sabry. According to security sources, prosecutors have begun collecting information about a middleman that had allegedly facilitated bribe payoffs between German company Ferrostaal and Egyptian government officials in order to secure approval for a five-year project in Egypt worth some 15 million euros. The same sources said that an investigator would travel to Munich to examine the results of investigations carried out by the German authorities. The German embassy in Cairo, meanwhile, declined to comment on the case since it is still under investigation. The Ferrostaal corruption case has disconcerted the German government, especially in light of the fact that two other German companies--Siemens and Daimler-Benz--were also involved in recent bribery scandals. Berlin fears it may have to compensate the countries involved in the cases for what appears to be a "systematic" method of bribery by German companies in countries known for widespread official corruption. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
