Parliament approves request by Mortada Mansour that he be investigated in slander cases

Gamal Essam El-Din , Thursday 16 Feb 2017

Mansour is accused of publicly insulting the owner of CBC television channel Mohamed El-Amin and the former head of Zamalek sporting club Mamdouh Abbas

Egypt
A file photo of MP Mortada Mansour in Parliament (Photo:Reuters)

Egypt’s parliament approved on Tuesday evening a request by independent MP and high-profile lawyer Mortada Mansour that he be referred to investigation by the prosecution to clear his name in a number of slander and insult cases filed against him.

A seven-page report prepared by parliament's legislative and constitutional affairs committee said that Mansour, the current chairman of Zamalek Sporting Club, had asked members of the committee that he be allowed to be questioned by prosecution authorities rather than be stripped of parliamentary immunity.

The report said that two public figures – Mohamed El-Amin and Mamdouh Abbas – had lodged complaints against Mansour with prosecutor-general Nabil Sadek, accusing him of slander and insulting them in public.

The report indicated that El-Amin, the owner of the private CBC television channel, filed seven complaints against Mansour.

El-Amin accused Mansour of calling him as “a thug who made his fortune trafficking in drugs, and that he is a liar who turned his CBC channel into a ‘WC’ channel,” said the report.

“El-Amin also complained that Mansour had accused him in a video of founding his CBC channel to secure personal interests from senior state officials and of making his in an illegal way such as stealing state land and trafficking in drugs,” said the report.

The report also said that Mamdouh Abbas, a contractor and former head of Zamalek Sporting Club, said that during a TV interview with Al-Hayat television channel, Mansour described him as a thug who paid Zamalek Ultras football fan club to kill Mansour’s nephew and disrupt El-Zamalek club. 

The report said that allowing Mansour to be questioned by prosecution authorities goes in line with Article 356 of parliament's internal bylaws, which states that if such cases are referred to trial, the MP in question is to be stripped of their parliamentary immunity.

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