Archive for Justice Ministry

Justice Minister demands investigation in referendum violations

by admin
December 18th, 2012

Justice Minister Ahmed Mekky demanded that judges be assigned to investigate alleged violations in the first round of voting in the constitutional referendum on Saturday 15 December.

Mekky sent a letter to the head of the Appeals Court demanding that an investigation be conducted into the allegations. He also submitted CDs containing videos and photos circulated in the media that purportedly document the violations.

In a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Justice Ministry spokesperson Ahmed Roshdy said that the High Electoral Commission is legally responsible for the entire electoral process, including the database of eligible voters, appeals to the process and announcing the final results.

The Justice Ministry had nothing to do with the electoral process, Roshdy noted.

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Court denies Illicit Gains Authority request to freeze Shafiq’s assets

by admin
December 8th, 2012

The Cairo Criminal Court has rejected a request from the Illicit Gains Authority to freeze the assets of former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq and his three daughters.

The court ordered the Illicit Gains Authority, which is part of the Justice Ministry, to cancel its previous decision to freeze the assets of Shafiq and his daughters Sherine, Mai and Amina, which would prevent them from disposing their liquid and movable funds, real estate, stocks, bonds and bank balances.

The authority had previously requested that the Cairo Court of Appeal support its decision.

Investigations and regulatory reports had raised suspicions about possible graft cases involving Shafiq, leading the authority to make its initial decision.

Decisions to freeze funds, either by the Illicit Gains Authority, the General Prosecution or investigating judges summoned by the justice minister, are temporary decisions that must subsequently be ratified by a criminal court. The decision lasts until the defendant is either referred to criminal court or the case is suspended.

Edited translation from MENA

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New Prosecutor General: Revolution prosecution to start immediately

by admin
November 24th, 2012

New Prosecutor General Talaat Abdallah announced Saturday that the “revolution prosecution” will begin work immediately to reopen investigations into the killings of demonstrators.

The announcement came during a meeting with judicial prosecutors in his High Court office in central Cairo, in his first press releases since taking office on Thursday. President Mohamed Morsy established the revolution prosecution in his decree Thursday in order to hold retrials of former regime officials accused of involvement in the killings of protesters during the 25 January revolution.

Abdallah said that members of the “revolution prosecution” will be chosen from attorney generals and investigating judges assigned by the Justice Ministry, adding that the cases will be held in the High Court.

He added that the re-trial of former regime figures will occur immediately if new evidence is discovered, citing Article 455 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

The revolution prosecution “is not competent alone in reinvestigations into the cases of killings of demonstrators,” he said, “because the law did not limit the investigation to [the revolution prosecution]. It is supposed to be joined by the Public Prosecution in conducting investigations."

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Soldier’s grandson files WWI compensation lawsuit

by admin
November 14th, 2012

 

A Justice Ministry employee whose grandfather was allegedly killed in World War I is demanding the government seek restitution for the families of Egyptian soldiers killed in that conflict.

Salama Ismail filed a lawsuit to compel the judiciary to seek LE1 trillion in compensation from European countries to be divided among the soldiers' descendants.

An administrative court adjourned consideration of the lawsuit Wednesday until 8 January to give it time to examine evidence.

Ismail's case is based on documents he allegedly found in the British Royal Archives in London regarding the Egyptian Army's participation in fighting alongside Allied forces, according to state-run newspaper Al-Akhbar's website.

Ismail claims the documents prove a large number of Egyptians were killed in combat and buried in eight cemeteries in France and British Commonwealth countries.

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Justice Ministry to investigate alleged police human rights abuses

by admin
November 5th, 2012

The Justice Ministry has tasked three judges with investigating four instances of human rights abuses allegedly committed by policemen, as per a request made by the National Council of Human Rights, the ministry said Monday.

The NCHR on Thursday had called for an investigation into police assaults on political activists.

It cited attacks on activist Taqadum al-Khatib from the National Association of Change, Khaled al-Sayed from the 25 January Revolution Youth Coalition, Haggag Nayel from the Arab Program for Human Rights Activists and Mohamed Fahim, a company owner from Mansoura.

Police violations had been a major driving force behind last January’s revolution against former President Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Activists have been calling on authorities to purge the Interior Ministry of officials who served under now-imprisoned former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly.

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Hussein Salem investigated for evading LE90 million in taxes

by admin
October 23rd, 2012

Assistant Public Prosecutor Adel Saeed on Tuesday said that Public Prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmoud ordered investigation into fugitive businessman Hussein Salem evading payment of some LE90 million in taxes owed for a period of up to 15 years.

The amount is due on returns from renting property in Heliopolis, the Movenpick Hotel and 18 villas in Sharm el-Sheikh. Salem did not formally notify the Tax Authority of these properties.

Saeed added in a press statement that experts in both the Justice Ministry and the Illicit Gains Authority are conducting the investigation.

In June, the Cairo Criminal Court sentenced Salem, a close ally of former President Hosni Mubarak, and former Petroleum Minister Sameh Fahmy to 15 years in prison for their involvement in Egypt’s notorious gas deal with Israel.

Egypt has an extradition request pending for Salem, who was arrested in Spain last June. On 11 June, state-run MENA news agency reported that the Spanish Constitutional Court has suspended the extradition of Salem to Egypt until his request for asylum is answered.

Prior to this, a Spanish national court had ordered the handover of Salem on the grounds that he is exploiting his Spanish nationality to evade extradition.

Salem fled to Spain during Egypt’s 25 January uprising last year. Following Mubarak's resignation, Egypt called on Interpol to arrest Salem for bribery, abuse of power and squandering public money. The Spanish government then found evidence implicating him in money laundering in Spain.

Salem was accused of giving Mubarak and his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, luxury villas in Sharm el-Sheikh for free, although they are valued at more than 5 million euros, in return for Mubarak granting him more than 2 million square meters of land in the same area.

The Cairo Criminal Court acquitted the defendants on 2 June, saying the sales in question occurred more than 10 years ago, which is beyond the statute of limitations for non-state employees to be prosecuted on corruption charges.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

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Illicit Gains Authority freezes Shafiq family assets

by admin
October 21st, 2012

The Illicit Gains Authority decided Sunday to freeze the assets of former presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq and his three daughters, to ban them from traveling outside the country in the event that they are in Egypt and to put them on the arrivals watchlist.

Official Justice Ministry spokesperson Ahmed Roshdy Salam told the state-run newspaper Al-Ahram the decision was based on ongoing corruption investigations of Shafiq, which have raised questions about the size of his wealth and bonds and securities in his name.  

The independent newspaper Youm7 said on its website that Shafiq’s frozen assets include a house in the Bitter Lakes area in Ismailia, four summer houses in the same area, a house in the upscale Fifth Settlement district of Cairo and two apartments in Hurghada, as well as stocks and bonds.

Shafiq is currently being tried in a corruption case concerning selling a 40,000 square meter plot of land owned by the Cooperative Housing Association for Military Pilots to Alaa and Gamal Mubarak at below-market rates in the 1990s.

He will also begin being tried in absentia in November on charges of financial corruption when he was the civil aviation minister.

Shafiq has been living in the UAE since losing the presidential race to the current president Mohamed Morsy.

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Investigating judge reports evidence against Shafiq

by admin
October 11th, 2012

Osama al-Saidi, the judge assigned by the Justice Ministry to investigate corruption accusations against former presidential hopeful Ahmed Shafiq, searched the headquarters of the Cooperative Housing Association for Military Pilots on Thursday and reportedly obtained new documents incriminating the suspect. 

Saidi told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the documents prove that Shafiq illegally seized 39 villas and chalets on the North Coast.

The agriculture minister has agreed with Saidi to submit a memorandum to President Mohamed Morsy requesting the cancellation of a decree former President Hosni Mubarak issued in 1991 that allegedly helped Shafiq acquire the land. The decree transferred land overlooking the Great Bitter Lakes near the Suez Canal from the General Authority for Fish Resources Development to a pilots' housing association headed by Shafiq. Shafiq is accused of then selling the land to Mubarak's sons at below-market prices.

The memorandum demanded that the land be returned to the fisheries authority and alleged that Mubarak and former Agriculture Minister Youssef Wali seized 119 acres of land surrounding the lakes.  

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

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Shafiq faces fresh corruption charges over land deals

by admin
October 9th, 2012

 

Judge Osama al-Saeedi has been tasked by the Justice Ministry to investigate a new complaint against former presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq over alleged violations in the Casa Blanca resort on the North Coast as well as in another project in New Cairo.

The complaint, filed by pilot Sayed Kamel Abdel Wahab, a member of the Cooperative Housing Association for Military Pilots board, accuses Shafiq, his late wife and his nephew of obtaining villas in Casa Blanca without informing the association’s board. It added that the implementation of the other project in New Cairo had been postponed for more than five years in order to hand it over to a firm run by Mahmoud al-Gammal, father-in-law to Alaa Mubarak, the son of Egypt’s deposed president.

Shafiq, who was the last prime minister under ousted President Hosni Mubarak, traveled to the United Arab Emirates in the wake of his loss in the presidential election against President Mohamed Morsy in June.

Authorities had placed Shafiq on airport watch lists and named him as a defendant in another criminal case on charges of selling a 40,000-square-meter plot of land in Ismailia owned by the pilots association to Mubarak’s sons, Alaa and Gamal Mubarak, at below-market rates in the 1990s. The sale would have taken place while Shafiq was the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force. Alaa and Gamal Mubarak are defendants in the case.

Shafiq also faces charges of corruption during his term as aviation minister.

Activists accuse him of escaping the trial, and demand his arrest and return. His supporters believe that he did not flee justice.

Edited translation from MENA

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Rumors that NGO case judge was sent to criminal court are false, say officials

by admin
August 27th, 2012

 

 

Court officials on Monday denied rumors that Judge Abdel Moez Ibrahim , the former head of the Cairo Court of Appeals who is accused of allowing employees from civil society organizations to leave the country while still under investgation for receiving illegal funds, hasbeen ordered to appear before the criminal court.
 
“I did not issue any such order,” said Justice Minister Ahmed Mekky, pointing out that investigations into judges are carried out privately by judicial bodies and not the ministry.
 
Mohamed Momtaz, head of the Supreme Council of the Judiciary, also denied that Ibrahim had been referred to court. 
 
“It looks like someone is trying to tarnish my reputation,” Ibrahim said of the issue.

Earlier in the day, sources from the Justice Ministry had told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the foreign funding case file would be sent to the public prosecution within days in order to prepare for Ibrahim’s trial.

Sources had also claimed that current head of the Cairo Court of Appeals, Samir Abul Maati, had decided to dissolve the court circuit that tried the defendants in what was known to the media as the “NGO funding case.” Justice Minister Ahmed Mekky was preparing to refer the four other judges from the case to disciplinary trial, as well, the sources alleged

In May, sources told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the Supreme Judicial Council ordered a criminal investigation of Ibrahim on charges of interfering in the work of certain judges and allowing foreigners who were being tried for receiving illegal funds for NGOs to leave the country before the trial was over.

According to earlier investigations, Ibrahim also interfered with the work of the court that oversaw the request to lift the defendants’ travel-ban, the sources added.

The Cairo Criminal Court will resume hearings in the NGO funding case on 9 September. Forty-three NGO workers face charges in the case. Nineteen US nationals, 14 Egyptians, five Serbians, two Germans and three citizens of other Arab countries are accused of receiving illegal funding from foreign organizations and governments and operating without permits.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

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