Misdemeanors court sentences talk show host to 2 years in jail

A misdemeanors court sentenced talk show host Ahmed Moussa to two years in jail and a LE30,000 fine on charges of libel and slander against Democratic Front Party head Osama al-Ghazaly Harb, state-owned Al-Ahram reported.

Harb had filed a lawsuit last October against Moussa after the latter insinuated that the former was giving information to officials at the American embassy and that he had established the party through illegitimate methods.

The lawsuit was also against owner of the Sada al-Balad satellite channel, which hosts Moussa’s show, Mohamed Aboul Enein. The court, however, acquitted Aboul Enein of all charges.

On his show “’Ala Mas’ouleety” on September 20, Moussa claimed that he has a lot of information about Harb.

“Do you remember how you got approval for your party under Mubarak?” Moussa asked, “Do you know or do you want me to tell you?”

Moussa also accused Harb of turning on the regime because he wanted to be appointed chief editor of Al-Ahram.

“The state knows who Osama al-Ghazaly Harb is,” Moussa said, “he is the one who used to sit with the American ambassador and tell him this and that happened.”

Moussa’s rant was in response to a column Harb had written that day in Al-Ahram titled “The Counter Revolution.” Harb cited “a talk show host” as an example of the counter revolution, referring to Moussa, saying he has “security connections,” and had embarked on a campaign to convince his viewers that the January 25 revolution was a conspiracy executed by a group of rented youth trained in Serbia.

Harb raised questions around who allows such talk show hosts to convey this information publicly, as well as around the role of security apparatus “which we thought was reformed.”

Moussa has a history of verbally provoking opposition activists and the Muslim Brotherhood following former President Mohamed Morsi’s ouster in July 2013. He was recently involved in a verbal tug of war with Islamist preacher Wagdy Ghoneim, following the deaths of 23 people on Egypt’s fourth anniversary of the January 25 revolution.

“The law is live ammunition,” Moussa asserted following fierce clashes between protesters in Matareya, North Cairo and police forces, which left over nine people dead.

“Demolish Matareya,” Moussa urged police on his show. “How can we allow terrorism to kill people? Where is the state of law? Enough with these policies. The rules of the game should change, the discourse… I don’t want to see these soft policies,” he shouted.

Last March, he also hailed a mass death sentence that was handed to 529 Brotherhood members in March, which was later dropped.

“I salute the fairness and justice of our judiciary in defiance of these killers, and all those who attack it. Egypt's judiciary is clean and fair,” he said. Responding to criticism of the death sentence, he asserted, “May they be 10,000, 20,000, not 500. We are not sad, we are happy… Burn them, burn their bodies, burn their clothes,” he continued. He paradoxically concluded, however, that “the state will win under the law and not with violence.”

Moussa also aired a video showing the arrest of three jailed journalists working for Al Jazeera, causing widespread uproar.