Egyptian parliament speaker says lawmaker ousting was due to ‘security breaches’

2 March 2016, 7:03 pm

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Speaker of the Egyptian Parliament Ali Abdel-Al said the vote to oust lawmaker Tawfiq Okasha was due to security breaches during his meeting with the Israeli ambassador to Egypt last week and not sue to the fact that he met an Israeli official, Egyptian media outlets report.

Abdel-Al said before the vote that “We are not going to talk about a meeting of MK Tawfiq Okasha with an ambassador of a foreign country, but rather on the discussion of issues related to Egyptian national security during a meeting.”

Before leaving the building under armed guard, Okasha told the al Masry al Youm news website, “I’m not commenting on this decision. I was slaughtered and there’s a determination to strip me of my membership.”

— Dov Lieber