CAIRO: Twenty-seven Egyptian teachers were deported from Saudi Arabia after being accused of forging work permits and health certificates. Investigations into the legal status of another 209 teachers are underway. Ahmed El-Quesni, assistant minister for consular affairs, immigration, Egyptian expatriates, refugees at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Egypt, stated in an official statement that the Egyptian embassy in Riyadh has been informed by the head of the Saudi Censorship and Investigation Authority that Saudi authorities had been investigating the 28 Egyptian teachers. He said 27 of them were given a suspended sentence of between one and three years in prison and financial fines of up to 10,000 Saudi riyals. The teachers were accused of forging their university degrees and work permits in Saudi Arabia. El-Quesni said none of the teachers were arrested during the investigations in Saudi Arabia, including a teacher who has not yet been deported to Egypt. There is still one teacher in Saudi under investigation, but she is not detained. Saudi authorities are still investigating her .the rest of the accused teachers live in various cities all over Saudi, said El-Quesni. He added that Saudi officials are looking into how the Saudi Ministry of Education would allow teachers to work with forged documents. The Saudi authorities said that they have discovered a number of similar cases over the past four years. Most of the forged university degrees belong to various Egyptian universities, said El-Quesni. He added that the ministry will be following up on the investigations with the rest of the teachers who have been accused of forging their work permits and residing outside the city of Riyadh. Officials at the Saudi embassy in Cairo were unavailable for comment.
