CAIRO: Egypt charged former Information Minister Anas El-Fiqi on Saturday with "deliberately causing financial harm" to the state-run Radio and Television Union, the state prosecutor said. It was the second indictment issued against El-Fiqi since he was forced out of office after president Hosni Mubarak was toppled in a popular uprising in February. The prosecutor said El-Fiqi was referred to a criminal court in Cairo on charges of depriving the Radio and Television Union, which he ran, of about $1.9 million in profits by exempting private television stations from fees for live broadcasts of the 2009-2010 football season and the start of the 2010-2011 season. It said El-Fiqi had done this to further his "personal interests as part of an attempt to impose his control and media policies on these stations," at a time when the radio and television union had debts of around LE 14 billion ($2.4 billion). El-Fiqi was detained in February on suspicion of profiteering and wasting public funds. In March, prosecutors indicted him after investigations showed he had demanded LE 36 million from the finance minister for media expenses for parliamentary elections and for media campaigns to promote Mubarak's achievements.
