A Cairo court will start on Sunday the first hearing in the trial of a lawmaker from the ruling party, who was arrested in the Cairo Airport last week while trying to smuggle 550 mobile phones, which he alleged to be used during his electoral campaign. "MP Yasser Salah will stand trial in the Economic Court on Sunday. He is facing four charges ranging from smuggling to importing devices with no previous permission, abusing his parliamentary immunity," a legal source said Saturday. He added that a customs panel at the Cairo Airport estimated the value of the would-be smuggled mobiles at LE1,109 million ($220,000). If convicted, the MP is subject to three years in prison and the mobiles could be sequestrated, according to the source. Salah, a member of the Shura Council (the Upper House of the Egyptian Parliament), was referred to a disciplinary board by Safwat el-Sherif, the chairman of the council. El-Sherif slammed the lawmaker as a "bad model of a lawmaker who should not have been elected as a deputy". That was not the first time for Salah to be in the amidst of such a controversy. He was referred to a disciplinary board for frequenting a gambling casino, which, according to Egyptian law, is not allowed for Egyptians, by using a forged foreign passport. He was then dubbed in the Egyptian media as the "gambling deputy".
