Ten Years in Prison for the Red Sea's Former Education Director Over a Bribe From a Hurghada School

The Red Sea Criminal Court has sentenced the governorate's former director of education to 10 years in prison for taking a bribe from the owner of a private school in Hurghada.

The court's second circuit delivered the verdict on Sunday, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm. The former director general of the Red Sea Education Directorate was convicted of soliciting and accepting money from a Hurghada private school owner in return for approving the cancellation of a decision that had suspended student transfers into the school.

The case began with a complaint from the school owner, who told prosecutors the official had bargained with him in exchange for easing administrative and regulatory procedures affecting the school. Investigators found he had asked for a sum of money in return for lifting the transfer ban.

With the prosecution's permission, officers arrested him in the act as he took part of the agreed sum, and the handover was documented in audio and video, the paper reports. Prosecutors heard the complainant, several witnesses and education officials before the Red Sea attorney general referred him to the criminal court, where he was held in custody through the trial.

He had been in the Red Sea post for around five months, having come from the education directorate in the New Valley governorate.

For parents in Hurghada, the ruling turns on something ordinary: a decision to stop transfers into a private school, and what it was worth to someone to have that decision reversed. Al-Masry Al-Youm does not name the official or the school, does not say how much money was involved, and does not say whether the sentence will be appealed.