Major Fahmy Bahgat, the former manager of the Police Officers Club, was released on Sunday evening, after being presented before the prosecution for interrogation on Sunday morning.
“He was released because there was no evidence,” the major’s lawyer Tarek El-Awady told Daily News Egypt. “The telephone chip Bahgat was accused of buying as a bribe was not in the mobile phone confiscated by the prosecution.”
The prosecution accused Bahgat of bribing an employee working in the public sector to obtain information, this bribe being a telephone line for EGP 25, state-owned media reported.
However, Bahgat’s case is not closed. El-Awady explained that investigations are still pending so as to discover who bought the aforementioned telephone line, and to determine Bahgat’s legal status accordingly.
El-Awady, who is also a lawyer in the Court of Cassation, wrote in a public Facebook post on Sunday that the major’s arrest was ordered by the Imbaba prosecution.
Bahgat was 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.
