Former parliamentarian Hamdy Al-Fakharani was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison on charges of blackmail and abuse of power. He was arrested in September for demanding an EGP 5m bribe to drop a corruption lawsuit he had filed earlier against businessman Samuel Thabet Zaki.
The court handed Al-Fakharani a four-year prison sentence and an EGP 100,000 fine on charges of blackmail and abuse of power. The sentence against Al-Fakharani on Wednesday, however, is a first degree court ruling that can be appealed.
Al-Fakharani, a famous anti-corruption activist, was originally suing Zaki to claim back a piece of land in Minya, which the businessman bought from the Nile Cotton Ginning Company in 2009. The company was privatised in 1997 and renationalised by court order after a lawsuit by Al-Fakharani in 2011.
Al-Fakharani then filed a lawsuit against the business for the government to reclaim the land. The arrest warrant came after a meeting between Al-Fakharani and Zaki in a villa in Sheikh Zayed. The meeting, which was recorded and presented as evidence, showed that Al-Fakharani demanded a bribe in return for dropping the lawsuit.
Al-Fakharani, who is head of the Egyptian National Anti-Corruption Organisation, is known for filing a string of lawsuits exposing corruption before the 25 January Revolution in 2011 and is a vocal opponent of the now banned Muslim Brotherhood.
He is most known for his lawsuit against the Talaat Mostafa Group over the validity of Madinaty housing project contracts. He was also involved in the lawsuit over alleged corruption in Egypt’s natural gas deal with Israel.
In 2010, he won the “Egyptian Warrior” prize presented by the Popular Movement Against Corruption for his contributions against the squandering of public funds.
