Expert Committee Chief Gives 6 Surprises in Monday MB Military Trial

The witness admits that the technical committees assessing the assets of the companies were formed without prosecution permission.
The witness says he didn”t revise the work of the check-up committees although he demanded them work under his supervision
 
 
” They hold me accountable for not taking bank loans and sue me for submitting a 25 million pound statement in 2005 although Loans MPs are on the loose and aren”t held accountable” said businessman Hassan Malek, of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) leaders referred to military tribunal, after the seventeenth session last Monday.
 
Malek”s inquiry came after the testimony of Saaduddin Al Sayed Ragab, the chairman of the three-party accountability committee affiliated to the experts section in the Ministry of Justice in front of the military tribunal at the Huckstepp base. He furnished a number of surprises in his testimony.
 
The first surprise was that the decision issued by the state security prosecution lacked names of the accused in the case. He even didn”t know the names of the accused except after the investigations papers to the military Attorney General .
 
Saaduddin who heads the three-party tasked with preparing the financial report said while hw was being interrogated by Sayed Al Sobki, a member of the defence team that ” The state security prosecution decision issued on Dec, 28th, 2006, didn”t include a number of defendants who weren’t accused at that time “.
 
He pointed out also that the decision of assigning the three-party committee of the illicit gain experts issued by the state security prosecution didn”t include any information about the defendants who faced no charges until data from data the accused who were not accusation place until Dec, 28th, 2006.
 
In a clear violation to law, said the defence team to Al-Dustour, ” The experts section at the Ministry of Justice tasked a number of technical committees with evaluating properties assets of the accused without receiving any assignment from the state security prosecution which has the authority to do so.
 
In a previous session, the chairman of the three party committee confirmed after being sworn that no one helped the three-party committee in preparing the report. He said “No one helped us in doing any thing whatsoever “. However, he said on Monday that the three-party committee sought help of a number of subcommittees that included a nine engineers subcommittee after the committee demanded the experts section at the Ministry of Justice to form a technical committees formation to evaluate and the properties. These subcommittees prepared an 8-volume report.
 
Also, the chief of the committee that prepared the financial report furnished another surprise when he renounced the report of those committees.
 
The defence team revealed that those reports have serious mistakes. This made the witness disclaim them in front of the court, saying:” I ignored these reports” explaining that they were merely tools to be referred to but the delay in preparing them led to relinquishing them.
 
However, he said in another time about the committee report overall evaluation to the capitals of the accused, estimated 448.29999 million pounds, that this figure is the evaluation of those committees, something considered by the defense as ” trap in which the witness put himself”.
 
Also, the defense questioned the legality of those technical committees, wondering that a subcommittee includes 9 engineers, while the main committee includes only three engineers. It hasn’t been even formed by the state security prosecution as pert of its decision of forming the three-party committee.
 
When the defense asked him whether he can discuss the principles according to which the technical committees worked, or the defense needs to interrogate the technical committees, the witness replied that he can not discuss them.
 
On the other hand, the witness confirmed that he sought help from a number of official institutions to complete papers and documents.
 
However, he confirmed that the three-party committee which he heads didn”t know that there is a number of companies which are frozen, although the technical committees moved to the premises of the companies and found them sealed off and under guard. Consequently, the report ignored key details which is addressing the body authorized to freeze the companies to provide the committee with the required papers and documents, according to the defense panel.
 
The third surprise was that the chairman of the committee preparing the financial report said that:” The decision of Higher State Security Prosecution of forming the three-party committee did not assign it with studying whether the money upon which the companies were established was a result of a crime”. He added also that the prosecution decision did not include evaluating the assets of the companies but it is confined to examining financial papers and documents to know who has the right in them”.
 
The fourth surprise was that the witness denied there is any relation between the Muslim Brotherhood and the companies whose assets are frozen, saying:” There is relation between the Muslim Brotherhood group and the frozen companies according to papers and documents seized from companies and houses of the accused”.
 
Denying the money laundry charge was the fifth surprise that the Monday witness furnished. He said:” the three-party committee hasn”t found any proof proving that the companies are implicated in funding any illegal activities or receiving any funding from any institution. There is also no relation between those companies and funding student activities or any other activity in Egyptian universities”.
 
“The prosecution directed the money laundry charge before seeing any paper from the documents of the accused companies” he added.
 
The witness”s sixth surprise was that he acknowledged that defining money laundry operations is out of the scope of his experience and out of his job, mainly dropping this charge against about the 29 accused, according to the defense team.
 
Therefore, the defense team demanded the chairman and deputy chairman of the anti-money laundry unit in the central bank be subpoenaed to ask them whether the unit received any notices from any body about any suspected money laundry operations and whether they have any records about any financial operations affiliated the accused and have any suspected money laundry operations.
 
The defense team demanded also subpoenaing the other two witnesses to interrogate them generally before discussing issues related to every single company, but the the court refused this request. So, Nasser Al-Hafy a lawyer in the defence team, demanded the court to adjure the witness not to tell his colleagues about what took place in the session.
 
 
They hold me accountable for not taking bank loans and sue me for submitting a 25 million pound statement in 2005 although Loans MPs are on the loose and aren”t held accountable” said businessman Hassan Malek after the seventeenth session last Monday to Al-Dustour newspaper.
 
He added that the financial report stated in page 328 that the total sum of their money is up to 448.2999 million pounds although the sum after an automatic caluculation according the financial report is only 358 millions.
 
“Our assets are nearly a quarter less than this sum. From where have they added this” wondered Malek.
 
Malek added that he promised to show many surprises during the coming sessions, and the same is expected from hearing the testimony of the committee chief and his colleagues.