Egypt's execution judge revealed as Facebook Casanova

Mohamed Nagy Shehata, who has sentenced dozens of people to death in the aftermath of the army coup, uses Facebook to befriend young, scantily clad women and rant at "traitors" to Egypt.

MENA

2 min read

Ahmed al-Azab

09 December, 2014

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Shehata has sentenced dozens of people to death [AFP]

By day, Mohamed Nagy Shehata hands out death sentences to Egyptian protesters. But by night the mustachioed pipe-smoker spends his time on Facebook insulting "traitors" and liking pictures of scantily clad young women.

The judge's double life has come to light over the last week after the content of his public Facebook profile was shared by activists.

The chairman of Giza's criminal court now has two nicknames - the "executions judge" of Egypt and the "Anteel of Facebook" - an Egyptian slang word inspired by the womanising character of Ahmed Zaki in the 1996 film, Stakoza.

Activists last week posted the content of Shehata's Facebook page. Various posts attacked the Muslim Brotherhood, the April 6 Movement, and Amr Hamzawy as terrorists, fifth columnists and traitors - in an apparent contradiction of his role in an independent judiciary.

But more of a surprise perhaps was Shehata's penchant for female models with saucy profile pictures, many of whom he had "liked", while the groups he joined displayed similar "adult-only" photos.

Shehata's trials

* The Kerdasa trial, which resulted in 12 death sentences.

* The Istiqama Mosque trial, where he sentenced 13 Muslim Brotherhood leaders to death.

* The "Al Jazeera trial", where 17 people including foreign journalists were jailed on the flimsiest of evidence.

* The "council of ministers" trial in which activist Ahmed Douma was sentenced to three years in jail.

* The so-called "Rabaa operations room" trial where members of the Brotherhood are accused of purposefully engineering the Rabaa massacre.

Websites including rassd.com were quick to publish the content, while social media began to buzz with reports and screengrabs of his messages.

Shehata quickly deactivated his account, and reactivated it only after the offending messages, pictures and friends were removed.

Still, the damage appears to have been done.

Activists used scenes from famous comedy films to ridicule the judge. One activist wrote, "Nagy Shehata reminds me of Hassan Abdeen in the movie Darb al-Hawa, when a seemingly sober figure goes to a dubious place at night and sings, 'I want a woman to ravish me, ravish me, ravish me!'".

Another recalled a heroine from a Mohammed Henedy film, who sang: "Our courts are upstanding, and will always be upstanding" as a double-entendre referencing Shehata's activities.

Moataz Matar, a journalist, told al-Sharq TV that Shehata, "the man behind half of all death sentences in Egypt", had a Facebook page that resembled "pudding with nuts" - a reference to his liaisons.

This is an edited translation of our Arabic edition.