Cairo: Judiciary lifts immunity from Parliamentarian Yousef Wali

The Cairo criminal court yesterday called for lifting parliamentary immunity from the deputy premier and minister of agriculture in Egypt, Youssef Wali, so as to be investigated in a corruption case one of his former aides was accused in.

Judicial sources said that the chairman of the court advisor, Ahmad Izzat al-Ashmawi, asked the attorney general, Maher Abdul Wahed, to take necessary measures in order to lift parliamentary immunity from Wali who also occupies the post of the assistant secretary general of the ruling national party in Egypt.

The judge considered that bringing Wali before the court is necessary in order to ask him about "having his signature on documents that are part of the file of the case" and bears the possibility that he approved the importation of cancerous pesticides, according to the same sources.

The court had summoned Wali for several times but he answered that

"his testimony will not be useful for the process of the case, and that he has no information on the addressed accusations for his former assistant."

In the Summer of 2002, the agriculture secretary in Egypt, Youssef Abdul Rahman ,was arrested and brought before the court under the charge of "corruption," for getting bribes and approval to import cancerous pesticides.

Youssef Wali is one of the oldest ministers in Egypt. He has been assuming the leadership of the ministry of Agriculture since 1982. Some considered him as the Godfather if normalization with Israel and one of the basic coordinators for the Egyptian policy towards the Sudanese file.