CAIRO: The Public Funds General-Prosecutor appealed the Giza criminal court's acquittal of all charges against Abdel Rahman Hafez, ex-chairman of Media Production City, Hamed Bassiouny, ex-president of the trade sector of Media City, and Sabry Al-Harani, light engineer. In December 2004, Hafez and his accomplices were charged with embezzling LE 30 million and misappropriating millions of pounds worth of funds. Their prison sentence was appealed and the three were released on Monday August 13. Now, the Public Funds General Prosecutor is appealing their acquittal. Hafez's lawyer Farid El Deeb was unavailable for comment at press time, but Daily News Egypt spoke to his office manager, who was shocked to hear news of the appeal. Lawyer Ahmed Sayed told Daily News Egypt that Egyptian law gives the prosecution the right to appeal such verdicts despite the fact that the courts are a higher authority. Only in Egyptian law do we have a system whereby an appeal can be appealed, Sayed added. However, Sayed added, I do not think that the prosecution has enough evidence to make the court appeal the verdict or else it would have provided it before. The reason this case is being rehashed, said Sayed, is because Hafez s case is a public opinion case [with ties to] political affiliations. It has caused a lot of controversy. The court verdict's original release sentence upset many people as it came after years of detainment that turned out to be unjust. Besides misappropriation of funds, Hafez was accused of causing losses after signing a contract to broadcast The Egyptian Satellite Channel in the US without properly studying the matter. He was further charged with signing a shady contract with businessman Ihab Talaat, co-owner of the Egyptian Arab Company for Advertising Media, giving Talaat sole advertising rights to Egyptian local TV channels at a special 55 percent discount rate, in violation of Media City's by-laws. In their Dec. 29, 2005 issue, Al-Ahram Weekly commented on his imprisonment by saying that the discount was in violation of regulations. Observers have linked Hafez s scandal with his close relationship to former Information Minister Safwat El-Sherif, currently secretary general of the National Democratic Party (NDP) and chairman of the Shoura Council, noting that the corruption was only revealed when El-Sherif left office. Media City s dire financial problems could no longer be kept under wraps. The opposition daily Al Wafd published a series of articles in November 2005 accusing Talaat of embezzlement with the help of the Egyptian Radio and Television Union as well as Media Production City officials. Early in December 2005, Minister of Information Anas El-Fekky ordered Hafez be investigated by the General Prosecutor. On Dec. 9, Talaat and his wife singer Sherine Wagdy were banned from traveling and stopped at the airport as they were leaving the country. On December 14, the Cairo Criminal Court ruled the temporary sequestration of Talaat's and Hafez's money and assets pending investigation. Their spouses' money and assets were also subject to the same ruling. Talaat's original request to set a payment plan for his debts - which would start by paying LE 8 million in cash and LE 22 million in checks - was overruled by the prosecutor's office. Talaat's debt to Media Production City reached around LE 48 million. There are also unconfirmed accusations that Talaat is indebted to Al Ahram Corporation to a tune of LE 63 million. Lawyer Amir Salem, who handles similar corruption cases and other high profile suits - including Ayman Nour's appeal - says there are many cases similar to this one. Salem previously told Daily News Egypt that "it is nonsense for someone to spend even one day of his life in prison and then be proven innocent. "A person s life, reputation and family are destroyed and he spends years in jail before his innocence is revealed. Government monitoring units do not work efficiently enough to base their allegations of corruption on correct information, Salem added. "A system that allows the authorities to detain any person and place him under temporary arrest before investigations are complete cannot be trusted. We all respect the legal system with its judges, laws and verdicts, but neither the judges nor the system are immune from mistakes, Salem added. Regarding Hafez s case, Salem said that the court's release verdict was a big surprise. Neither Hafez nor his lawyer Farid El Deeb publicized the nature of the new evidence which led to the sudden exoneration.
