The Boss Goes to Jail

Three years ago, fat Fuad Serag el Din was one of Egypt's masters. He planted his bulk firmly behind a huge desk equipped with seven phones, four squawk-boxes, three fountain pens and a mound of specially rolled, bat-sized Havanas, and bossed the secret police as Interior Minister, the treasury as Finance Minister, and the nation's No.1 political party as secretary general of the Wafd.

Last week Fuad Serag el Din sat before the bar of justice in a Cairo court, smoking cigarettes instead of cigars, his expensive suit bagging a little on his thinning frame. He was on trial for his life on nine charges of misusing his powerful position in the Wafd and in the government.

This was a show trial for the new regime. The three-man court--composed of officers of the Revolutionary Command Council--had prepared carefully. For 50 days they had led a parade of eminent witnesses--ex-Premiers, senior civil servants, big-time politicians--through a tour of the hidden sewers of the Farouk regime, hoping thereby to discredit Farouk, Serag el Din and the Wafd all at once. To a large extent, they succeeded. Items of testimony:

P: Serag el Din took a -L-5,000 bribe from a deputy who wanted a police station moved.

P: One Wafd Minister of Agriculture personally speculated in the cotton market and falsified crop reports to make a -L-26,000 profit.

&P: Serag el Din changed the laws to benefit the cotton speculators, a move that cost the government -L-17 million in two years.

P:-- Some Wafd members of Parliament were either hashish traders or patrons of them.

P: Farouk accepted a -L-75,000 bribe from the cotton speculators to plead their case before the Cabinet.

P: Doddering old Mustafa el Nahas, Wafd Premier, once got a certain Madame de Buisson with child, whereupon her humiliated husband killed himself. On another occasion the Wafd party--largely composed of poor peasants--paid -L-6,000 to a Polish newswoman to get her to leave the country after she had had an affair with Nahas.

P: Serag el Din accepted a Rolls-Royce from a government contractor and only paid for it a few months ago when he feared the story might come out in court.

P: Top government officials and businessmen were told exactly what presents to give at Farouk's wedding. Industrialist Ahmed Abboud gave a -L-35,000 gold tea service.

When the witnesses were finished, so was Serag el Din. "Show your mercy toward the homeland by proving cruel to him," demanded the prosecutor in his summation. At week's end Serag el Din stood up and did not flick an eyelash as the court pronounced its verdict: 15 years in prison.

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