Renowned lawyer Samir Sabry, representative of widow Sahar Abdou, filed the complaint against doctor Sherif Abbas, who treated El-Ebrashy during the early stages of his illness with the coronavirus late in 2020.

The complaint accuses Abbas of using secret, unnamed and unregistered pills, which he discovered, and which he claimed could cure the coronavirus within a week no matter how severe the case.

El-Ebrashy “was the victim of a full-fledged murder” committed by the doctor, Sabry said.

Wael El-Ebrashy, the former presenter of the Al-Tasea (“9 o'clock”) program on national TV, contracted the coronavirus in late 2020 and was admitted to the intensive care unit of a quarantine hospital in Giza.

However, he left the hospital in March of last year after his health improved, but continued to receive treatment at home after developing pulmonary fibrosis due to the coronavirus.

This disease prevented him from returning to TV screens, despite frequent reports that he had almost recovered.

‘Fake treatment’ and ‘lung fibrosis’

Sabry said Abbas’s fake treatment caused El-Ebrashy’s condition to significantly deteriorate and ultimately to develop lung fibrosis.

El-Ebrashy was then admitted to the hospital with the disease and later died after suffering from its complications for a year, the complaint says.

Doctors tried over the course of a year to “fix the effects of the murder crime” that Abbas committed, the complaint says, describing the accused doctor as “a heartless, unknowledgeable and unscrupulous show off.”

Secondhand smoke

“The doctor planned to assassinate the late Wael El-Ebrashy,” Sabry said, claiming that Abbas kept on smoking heavily in the same room where he stayed with El-Ebrashy day and night throughout his treatment journey.

“He did not stop smoking although he is a doctor who… knows the dangerous and destructive effect that this amount of smoking will have in a closed room and next to a patient,” Sabry added.

‘Full-fledged medical crime’

Sabry’s complaint to the public prosecution replicated remarks by renowned dermatologist and political author Khaled Montaser on his Facebook page on Thursday.

El-Ebrashy’s widow, Sahar Abdou, told media recently that El-Ebrashy died due to “a medical error by his quarantine doctor,” describing some doctors that she did not name as “murderers.”

Montaser said he considers that El-Ebrashy was the victim of a “full-fledged medical crime and not a medical error as his esteemed wife says.”

‘Groundless accusations’

In a statement earlier this week, the Egyptian Medical Syndicate condemned and rejected the widow’s remarks, where she threw groundless “accusations against a doctor.”

The syndicate also rejected the widow’s claims that “a medical error occurred and caused the death of the deceased,” saying that the claims were made “without any legal basis or medical proof,” despite having a year since the incident in which to gather it.

The syndicate also condemned Abdou’s remarks where “she described doctors as murderers.”

The statement warned against unprofessional coverage of medical errors by media, citing frequent attacks on doctors in Egypt and the absence of a law to professionally and scientifically investigate issues of medical harm.

The syndicate warned that such phenomena “will harm the reputation of the medical profession in Egypt and will cause Egyptian doctors, who are attracted by all the world’s countries for their skills, to continue to migrate.”

Defamation complaint

Ayman Salem, the secretary-general of the Medical Syndicate, said Abbas issued a complaint to the syndicate against Montaser and El-Ebrashy’s family for defamation.

In remarks to media, Abbas denied claims of medical error or mistreatment, saying all the drugs he used to treat El-Ebrashy are registered.

Abbas warned that he would sue those who accuse him of medical negligence, affirming that he himself asked the syndicate to launch an investigation so that he can prove his innocence.