A Cairo court sentenced Egyptian actor Farouq Al Fishawi to a 6 month prison term with a fine of 300 Egyptian pounds in addition to covering all the fees of lawyers, after he was found guilty of fraud. The actor, during his reign as head of the Egyptian Artists and Businessmen Investment Company, had cheated a woman into paying 36 thousand Egyptian pounds as a down payment for a piece of land, but never came around to finalizing the legal papers and kept postponing the issue until the woman filed a lawsuit against.
According to the London based daily, Al Sharq Al Awsat, the woman took the issue to court and presented documents that stated Farouq had sold her the piece of land and had took money from her. The court had ordered the actor to be present at the hearing but he failed to attend along with his lawyer, leading the court to take the decision of sentencing him without bail.
It was noted that the actor is faced with a number of lawsuits for taking large sums of money from people, who wanted to buy land, but never gave them the land or returned their money.
This is the second time Farouq was faced with a prison term for fraud and taking 48 thousand Egyptian pounds from a Palestinian businessman, but charges against him were dropped. The businessman agreed to a payment of 30 thousand Egyptian pounds as a payment for overdue debts from Farouq in return dropping all charges and saving the actor from a two-year imprisonment.
In March, Farouq was sentenced to a two-year jail term with a four thousand Egyptian pound bail by a Cairo court. Farouq was sentenced for writing bad checks worth 75 thousand Egyptian pounds to the businessman at the company he was heading.
The businessman had filed a lawsuit against the actor when the checks he and other members of the company, which included a number of actors, were given bounced and it appeared that the actor did not have a balance. The actor did not attend the hearing which ruled against him and denied his right to a retrial.
The case against Farouq dates back to the year 2001, when he was head of the board of directors for the company that deals with division of real estate, and faced a lawsuit when he kept writing checks without having a balance over advance payments in a real estate deals. –Albawaba.com
