Today, Wednesday, the Cairo Criminal Court in Egypt ruled that10 years in prison for the ex-wife of Health Minister Hala Zayed, following his involvement in the case that was known in the media as “bribery of the Ministry of Health.”.
The ruling stipulated the punishment of Mohamed Abdel-Majid Hussein Al-Ashhab, the minister’s ex-wife, a senior specialist at the Misr Life Insurance Company, with 10 years in prison and a fine of 500,000 pounds, and Mohamed Ahmed Behairy, director of the licensing department at the Ministry’s Free Treatment Foundation, with one year’s imprisonment with hard labor.
acquittal of bribery brokers
The ruling included exempting the accused, the two bribery brokers, Mr. Attia Ibrahim Al-Fayoumi, a doctor and owner of Al-Fayoumi Hospital, and Hussam Al-Din Abdullah Fouda, an armed forces officer with a pension, from punishment in accordance with the law following their confession.
The Public Prosecution had ordered the referral of the four defendants to criminal trial, and charged the first defendant, who is the ex-minister, with accusations that he demanded for himself an amount of 5 million pounds as a bribe from the owners of a private hospital, through the mediation of other defendants, in exchange for using his influence to obtain from officials of the Ministry of Health decisions and benefits related to not Implementing the decision to close the hospital for its management without a license, and preparing a false report that proves, contrary to the truth, that there are no violations in it.
Hala Zayed, Minister of Health and Population in Egypt
The Public Prosecution stated that it established evidence in the lawsuit from the statements of 13 witnesses, including the owners of the hospital, who informed the Administrative Control Authority of the bribery incident, upon its request, and Saira was free of the Minister, with the permission of the Public Prosecution, until he was arrested, as well as the statements of the two defendants who mediated in the bribery, and the examination of the accused’s mobile phones Seized and proven correspondence confirmed the commission of the incident.
Using the name of the Minister of Health
AndInvestigations revealed that the accused used the name of his ex-wife, Dr. Hala Zayed During his campaign for membership in the House of Representatives, he also promoted his ability to serve the people of the constituency in the institutions affiliated with the Ministry of Health.
A witness before the Criminal Court said that the ex-wife of the minister communicated with his son Saif, who conveyed him to Ahmed Salama, director of the technical office in the sector of the minister’s office, adding that there were instructions from the minister to meet the requests of her son and her family in general.
The judge asked the witness, “Did the officials in the minister’s office implement her son’s requests without referring to her?” He replied, “It was among the minister’s instructions that her house requests were implemented without referring to her.”
The emergence of Hala Zayed during the crisis
sick
He added that the contact of the first accused with the officials of the Ministry of Health resulted in the formation of a committee from the “Free Treatment Department” and an inspection of the “Hospital of Dar Al-Saha”.
The Minister of Health had fallen ill, and subsequently entered the hospital last year, following the outbreak of the Ministry’s bribery case and the involvement of her ex-husband.
The investigations acquitted the minister, and confirmed that there were only 4 accused, including her ex-husband, who used her name to obtain bribes.
