CAIRO// A property fraud scandal involving a prominent member of Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) has attracted new attention to corruption within the country's leadership. Over the past three months, Egypt's general prosecutor has twice requested that the National Assembly lift immunity from Yehia Wahdan, an NDP parliamentarian in Egypt's People's Assembly. Mr Wahdan has been implicated in a scheme to use falsified documents to sell property, some of which belonged to Egypt's Jewish minority.
The delay in lifting immunity protections - which are given to all members of parliament - has obstructed investigations into Mr Wahdan's personal finances, according to an article published two weeks ago in the Al Sharouq newspaper, which cited anonymous "judicial sources". Despite the public prosecutor's requests, the parliament and its president, Fathi Sorour, decided that the immunity should remain and that Mr Wahdan should only be compelled to give a statement to law enforcement officials. Mr Sorour did not answer phone calls from The National.
The fact that some of the land in question belonged to Egypt's dwindling and closely watched Jewish population has grabbed headlines in Egypt. Before he became a parliamentarian, Mr Wahdan was in charge of the office that monitored Egypt's domestic Jewish population and managed counter-espionage efforts against Israel for the State Security Intelligence (SSI) services, a position that his accusers said allowed Mr Wahdan a unique level of access to the personal information and private records of Egyptian Jews.
Mr Wahdan's SSI past also lent him an air of authority that allowed him to handily defraud otherwise savvy investors, some of his accusers said. One such investor, Rafeeq Alias, said he and Mr Wahdan, along with Mr Wahdan's brother-in-law, Badr Amer, invested jointly in a downtown plot of land in May 2007. After Mr Alias gave 3.3 million Egyptian pounds (Dh2.2m) to Mr Amer - Mr Wahdan's name was not included in the contracts, apparently to avoid parliamentary regulations on private business deals - Mr Alias learnt from property officials that Mr Amer's deeds and the former owners' power of attorney documents had been falsified.
Mr Amer is now in prison where he has spent the past month awaiting trial. He has been accused, but not charged, with fraud, said Ibrahim al Khateeb, the lawyer for both Mr Amer and Mr Wahdan. Though he acknowledged that Mr Wahdan would have joined Mr Amer in prison if it were not for the former's parliamentary immunity, Mr Khateeb said Mr Wahdan's statement to the public prosecutor should preclude the need to lift Mr Wahdan's immunity.
For his part, Mr Wahdan says he is an innocent victim of bitter political rivals and the overzealous private media that make their bones by picking on figures of authority. Mr Wahdan said his success in the 2005 parliamentary elections attracted jealousy from politicians within his own party, who then fabricated property deeds in order to frame him. "From 2005 until now, these have been the hardest years of my life. I felt my life has changed from the years before that," Mr Wahdan said. "The issue of the property case caused me a really big shock. It made me feel that I'm weak. I was hit by the media because they're against any person in charge."
Rumours reported in Al Sharouq have implied that the NDP may set Mr Wahdan adrift by prohibiting him from running for re-election in Bab Al Sharia. "I've never felt that I was a member of parliament and now I regret that I am a member. I didn't know there was all this fighting," said Mr Wahdan, who added that the harsh, often underhanded competition in parliament caught him by surprise. "It seems that, to achieve your goals, you have to accuse others."
mbradley@thenational.ae * With additional reporting by Ahmed al Ghamrawy
