Major Fahmy Bahgat, former manager of the Police Officers Club, was presented before prosecution on Sunday morning after being arrested from his home the previous night.
The prosecution accused Bahgat of bribing a public sector employee for information. The in-kind bribe referred to was a telephone line worth EGP 25, state-owned media reported.
Lawyer in the Court of Cassation, Tarek El-Awady, wrote in a public Facebook post that the arrest was ordered by the Imbaba prosecution. Bahgat is accused of obtaining data from a Civil Affairs Authority employee about the owner of a large foreign exchange company that has been accused of “playing around” with Egypt’s foreign exchange market.
Bahgat submitted a report to the prosecution about the company owner, which is pending investigations.
The company owner is the brother of a former high-ranking member of security personnel who spoke to Bahgat on the phone Friday to negotiate withdrawing the report, which in turn would nullify the arrest order, El-Awady said.
Bahgat had previously been charged with facilitating prostitution. On Friday, he wrote a lengthy public post on Facebook clarifying his situation in four main points. “I won’t allow anyone to badmouth the leaders of the Ministry of Interior, the minister being at the top of them, despite my deep grief about his position on the fabricated case against me for facilitating prostitution,” he wrote.
Following that point, he explained that his media appearances are only to defend himself and argue against those who “fabricated” the case. Moreover, he wrote that he was brought up in a police school and thus will never be someone’s tool to “bash” the Ministry of Interior.
He also clarified that his activity on Facebook is an attempt to reach the president or the minister of interior, after his failed endeavours to meet them.
He stressed that he was neither part of the Police Officers Coalition, nor has he even attended any of their meetings because he stands completely against the existence of any coalitions inside the ministry.
