Egypt's President Mohamed Morsy and state prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmoud agreed Saturday that Mahmoud will stay, ending a crisis over his refusal to quit after being dismissed, an aide to the prosecutor said.
State television reported that the two met and sealed an agreement under which "the state prosecutor will stay on in his post," said deputy state prosecutor Adel Said, citing a "misunderstanding over his nomination as ambassador to the Vatican."
Morsy on Thursday fired Mahmoud, appointing him Egypt's envoy to the Vatican, but the state prosecutor refused to stand down, saying: "I remain in my post. According to the law, a judicial body cannot be dismissed by an executive authority."
The Islamist president's bid to remove Mahmoud bypassed checks on presidential control of the prosecutor, enraging judges after Morsy also unsuccessfully tried to reverse a court order disbanding the Islamist-dominated Parliament.
Prosecution spokesperson Adel Saeed said that the decision came after a meeting between Morsy, Mahmoud and members of the Supreme Judicial Council.
Mahmoud returned to his office immediately after the end of the meeting, to resume his work, amid the cheers of his supporters in the High Court.
Meanwhile, Essam al-Erian, a candidate for the presidency of the Freedom and Justice Party, earlier accused Mahmoud of confusing the power of the judiciary with that of the executive party, according to reports by Al-Masry Al-Youm.
During an election rally Saturday, Erian said that Morsy “felt that the public prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmoud needs to be honored the way former Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi was honored,” referring to Tantawi being awarded the Collar of the Nile after being sent into retirement, while Mahmoud was offered the post of ambassador to The Vatican after the acquittal of the Battle of the Camel defendants.
Erian who is now the vice president of the party and its acting president, said that “the public prosecutor combines both the executive and legislative authorities, since prosecutors do not move cases forward without his permission.”
He added , “I did not threaten the public prosecutor of dismissal, because I'm not in a position of power. If we had a [real] public prosecutor we wouldn’t have started a revolution; there were crimes committed against the people.”
