MP Talaat Sadat suffered a heart attack on Thursday. He was taken to Cairo’s Cleopatra Hospital, where he is currently receiving treatment by an intensive care unit.
The heart attack followed Sadat’s return from Minya, where he had been in court to offer defense testimony on behalf of a man accused of killing a woman and her three children. The court ordered the defendant’s release.
Sadat’s brother, Mohamed, said Talaat had been angered by a recent majority vote in parliament to strip him of his parliamentary immunity to allow him to be investigated on charges of bribe taking. Sadat had earlier described the move–which prompted him to resign from parliament’s legislative committee–as a deliberate attempt to tarnish his political and professional reputation.
Sadat’s office later issued a statement accusing parliament of having "double standards," noting that the assembly had on several past occasions declined to lift the parliamentary immunity of MPs associated with the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).
Sadat had contested the decision by lodging an appeal with the attorney-general. In his appeal, he pointed out that courts had earlier found that a number of sitting NDP MPs had been involved in election rigging, meaning they should not even be sitting in parliament in the first place.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
