CAIRO: The Cairo Appeals Court will retry MP Hani Sorour, involved in the notorious case of manufacturing defective blood bags, on April 18. Sorour will be retried along with six employees from his factory, Hidelina, and from the Ministry of Health. Implicated in the case with Sorour are Dr Helmi Salah Al-Din, general manager of the blood affairs department at the Ministry of Health; Dr Mohamed Wagdan, chairman of the technical center in Hidelina; Nivan, Sorour's sister and a Hidelina board member, as well as three company employees, Wafaa Abdel Rahim, Ashraf Ishaq and Fathia Ahmed Abdel Rahim. On Nov. 7, 2008, the Appeals Court ruled that the case be reopened and referred it to the Court of Cassation to set a date for a retrial before a new panel of judges. The Attorney General filed a report requesting the case be reopened in which he revealed major defects in the blood bags. The report said that the bags were infected with bacteria and fungi likely to cause cancer and hepatitis. Sorour is a member of the ruling National Democratic Party and was a former member in the PA's economic affairs committee. He was stripped of his parliamentary immunity in January 2007, when the case first surfaced. The proceedings began in mid-2007 after an employee at the health ministry, Soheir El Sharkawi, blew the whistle on 200,000 defective blood bags in the ministry's storage. Investigations also found violations in the license granted to Hidelina to provide the bags. The Ministry of Health insisted that no harm had come from the blood bags which contained what they labeled "industrial defects. Health Minister Hatem El-Gabaly testified in favor of Hidelina. Hidelina was accused of producing 200,000 defective blood bags ripe with bacteria and fungi that could have caused cancer and hepatitis.
