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Egypt jails Okasha for forgery

May 11, 2017 at 4:36 pm

Former Egyptian journalist and parliamentarian Tawfiq Okasha has been sentenced to a year in jail after he was found guilty of forging his doctorate certificate.

The Nasr City Misdemeanor Court also fined him 5,000 Egyptian pounds ($277).

Public Prosecutor Nabil Sadiq referred Okasha to trial after a number of reports surfaced that he had falsifying his doctorate certificate which he submitted to the House of Representatives.

Okasha was removed from Parliament and stripped of his MP status in March 2016 after other lawmakers protested following his meeting with the Israeli ambassador in Cairo, with one hitting him with a shoe during a public hearing.

Egyptian parliament speaker Ali Abdel-Al said at the time that the decision to drop Okasha’s membership was due to “his involvement in matters relating to Egyptian national security and not due to his meeting with the Israeli ambassador.”