Cairo – “Al-Quds Al-Arabi”: Actress Menna Shalaby, sentenced yesterday to one year in prison for drug abuse, was not the first Egyptian artist to be accused of this charge, many of them have preceded, the latter being singer Sherine Abdel-Wahhab.
In the “Al-Hekaya” program a few months ago, with the journalist Amr Adib, her brother and mother came out, in a phone call, to announce that Sherine Abdel Wahhab was doing drugs with her husband, the artist Hossam Habib, who forced her brother to inform a specialized hospital to help her. She forced her into the hospital to recover. Sherine was discharged after a medical report confirmed her recovery.
In 2019, director Khaled Marei was sentenced to one year in prison with hard labor after being arrested at Cairo airport, charged with smuggling hashish and marijuana seeds from the Netherlands. And before that, in 2018, the judiciary handed down a three-year prison sentence against director Sameh Abdel Aziz and a £50,000 fine, on charges of possession of drugs for the purpose of abuse. He was arrested on his way to a hotel in Cairo. He spent his time in an Egyptian prison before being released to resume his work as a director.
Cannabis and shots
In 2016, the Alexandria Investigation Department arrested the actress, Nevine Mandour, while she was in her car trying to escape an ambush, and was in possession of a hashish cigarette and 4 bullets. Mandour said in televised statements that the accusation was staged and that he was her father, not her.
In 2014 the artist, Noha Al-Amrousi, was charged with possession of drugs, and was arrested and detained pending investigation for a fortnight period, after which she was released on £10,000 bail, before l the prosecution carried out a blood test, through which it was demonstrated that he does not use any type of drug. The artist, Ahmed Azmy, was arrested twice, firstly in October 2013 in South Sinai Governorate while abusing drugs inside his flat in Sharm El-Sheikh, in possession of 5 grams of cocaine and 10 grams of hashish. He was jailed for 5 days pending investigations and the court acquitted him for failing to complete the evidence. The second time was in 2014, again in South Sinai, during a search campaign in the context of a road ambush, and it was discovered that he had hashish, cocaine and a Tramadol tape. He was released on £2,000 bail and the court acquitted him after the proceedings for his arrest were not sound.
In 2013, the General Administration of Narcotics arrested Dina El-Sherbiny, while she was buying cocaine in the Zamalek region, and Dina admitted going to her boyfriend’s apartment and taking a dose of cocaine before arriving in his home, denying her involvement with him in drug trafficking, as the prosecution investigated and monitored the presence of 3 rolls of cocaine weighing 320 kilos. A fine estimated at half a million pounds.
The artist, Haitham Mohamed, was jailed for four days pending investigation on charges of possession and use of heroin in a private car in the Badr area of Cairo’s New Prosecutor’s Office.
Several years ago, news broke of the arrest of the artist, Amr Mustafa Metwally, son of the late artist Mustafa Metwally, while using drugs in his car in the transit area.
Artist Intisar was also arrested on drug abuse charges in Giza after she was caught drunk in the company of a group of Kuwaitis. Rico was also arrested along with four others for drug use in an apartment in the transit area.
In 1998, the artist, Samah Anwar, was arrested because drugs were found in her car, following a traffic accident, and was jailed for 15 days pending investigation. In 1991, artist Saeed Saleh was accused of using drugs with a number of his friends, and he balked at the accused’s statements to the prosecution that they were conducting a rehearsal for the ‘Sweet Talk’ show, but was sentenced to one year in prison.
Addiction recovery journey
The artist, Hatem Zulfiqar, has been accused of drug abuse, and the security services have arrested him more than once, in possession of heroin. On one occasion he was arrested while staying at the apartment of a friend of his who was dealing drugs.
After the death of the artist, Imad Eid al-Halim, sources close to him said he died of a cocaine overdose. The late artist Nour al-Sharif claimed to be addicted to drugs in Lebanon and indicated in Mustafa Yassin’s book “Stars That Nobody Knows” that he took narcotic pills and hallucinogenic pills which affected his work for two years. When he returned to Egypt, he found that the directors and producers had decided not to deal with him, to begin the process of recovery from addiction. The late artist, Farouk Al-Fishawy, also announced that he was addicted to drugs during a period of his life and got rid of them with the help of his wife, Sumaya Al-Alfi at the time.
