Hisham Genena, also spelled Geneina or Genina (; born 1954 in Daqahlia) is a former

police officer A police officer (also called policeman or policewoman, cop, officer or constable) is a Warrant (law), warranted law employee of a police, police force. In most countries, ''police officer'' is a generic term not specifying a particular rank. ...

public prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the adversarial system, which is adopted in common law, or inquisitorial system, which is adopted in civil law. The prosecution is the legal party responsible ...

judge A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...

, chief auditor,

anti-corruption Anti-corruption (or anticorruption) comprises activities that oppose or inhibit corruption. Just as corruption takes many forms, anti-corruption efforts vary in scope and in strategy. A general distinction between preventive and reactive measur ...

advocate, and vice-presidential candidate. Genena was deputy head of the Court of Cassation, Egypt's highest

court of appeal An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to Hearing (law), hear a Legal case, case upon appeal from a trial court or other ...

, and head of the

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

ian public finance oversight body, the Central Auditing Organization (CAO) from 2012 to 2016. He was made famous for his anti-corruption statements, and a 350-page CAO report he leaked to the press in 2016 that detailed the high cost of corrupt land deals. This culminated in Genena's removal from office, and subsequent trials which ended in his incarceration two years later while running as a vice-presidential candidate. Genena was released in February 2023 after serving the five-year term.

Independence of the Judiciary movement

Geneina joined progressive judges in the Independence of the Judiciary movement (''tayyar istiqlal al-qada')'' in the 2000s, fighting against retreating judicial independence under president Hosni Mubarak. During the 2011 revolution the movement headed by Geneina called for the removal of Mubarak's last Minister of Justice, Mamdouh Marie, who had survived Mubarak's removal, he condemned the military trials of civilians, and along with the independence movement sought to try Marie after he left office for influencing the outcome of several cases of illicit gains and obstructing justice during his post.

Head of CAO

Geneina was appointed as head of CAO by president

Mohamed Morsi Mohamed Mohamed Morsi Eissa Al-AyyatThe spellings of his first and last names vary. survey of 14 news organizations plus Wikipedia in July 20122011 uprising, succeeding

Mubarak Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak (; 4 May 1928 – 25 February 2020) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the fourth president of Egypt from 1981 to 2011 and the 41st prime minister from 1981 to 1982. He was previously ...

era chairman,

Gawdat al-Malt Gawdat al-Malt (born February 1935, Arabic: جودت الملط) is a retired Egyptian judge and former head of the State Council (Administrative Court) and former chairman of the top public finance and anti-corruption watchdog, the Central Au ...

, who resigned more than a year earlier almost immediately after Mubarak was deposed. Corruption cases lodged against Mubarak and his circle were still in court then, and anti-corruption groups called on Geneina to release information held by the CAO that could aid in their prosecution.

Anti-corruption statements

In February 2014, during the interim government of

Adly Mansour Adly Mahmoud Mansour (, ; born 23 December 1945) is an Egyptian judge and politician who served as the president (or chief justice) of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt. He also served as interim president of Egypt from 4 July 2013 to 8 ...

that was appointed after Morsi was deposed in July 2013, Geneina announced at a press conference that he had referred more than 900 cases to the prosecutor general, the administrative prosecutor and Illegal Gains Agency, highlighting how less than 7 percent of those cases are known to have been put under investigation or taken to trial.

Anti-corruption report

In a December 2015 with Al-Youm al-Sabea newspaper, Hesham Geneina gave a statement that "corruption in 2015 exceeded LE 600 billion 75 bn at the time” which drew a swift response from president

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi (born 19 November 1954) is an Egyptian politician and retired military officer who has been serving as the sixth and current president of Egypt since 2014. After the 2011 Egyptian revolution and 201 ...

who formed a fact-finding committee which slammed the report and accused Geneina of deliberate deception and exaggerating the extent of corruption. Even though the committee confirmed the accuracy of the LE600 billion figure, though over the years 2012-2015 and not in one year, Geneina was removed from the CAO in March of that year, and on July 28, 2016, the Cairo court for minor offenses convicted Hisham Geneina of disseminating false information and gave him a suspended one-year sentence, which was condemned by local and international rights and anti-corruption organisations. During most of that time, the report was still with the CAO and the investigating bodies, and the general public did not know any of its contents, but in June 2016, a copy of ''A study on the analysis of the cost of corruption by application on some sectors in Egypt'' was leaked by independent news outlet

Mada Masr ''Mada Masr'' () is an independent Egyptian online newspaper, founded in June 2013 by former journalists of the English-language newspaper '' Egypt Independent'' following the shutting down of its editorial operations in April 2013. It is an inde ...

, showing in detail the corruption Geneina intended to fight, and that his publicly state figure was actually conservative compared to the LE876.66 billion calculated only for the

New Urban Communities Authority The New Urban Communities Authority () is an Egyptian state owned enterprise (SOE) established in 1979 and affiliated to the Ministry of Housing. It is the exclusive satellite city developer in Egypt, in addition to being Egypt's largest re ...

, the government entity in charge of developing new cities and real estate.

Vice-presidential bid

In January 2018, Hisham Genena was to run as vice-president in Sami Anan's bid to contest

Abdel Fatah al-Sisi Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi (born 19 November 1954) is an Egyptian politician and retired military officer who has been serving as the sixth and current president of Egypt since 2014. After the 2011 Egyptian revolution and 2012 ...

in the

2018 Egyptian presidential election Presidential elections were held in Egypt between 26 and 28 March 2018, though Egyptians abroad voted from 16 to 18 March 2018. On 19 January, incumbent President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi formally announced he would run for a second and final term ...

. On 27 January 2018, Genena was attacked by three unidentified men outside his home. Anan was later arrested, and in an effort to put pressure on the government to release him, Genena threatened to reveal documents showing that army leaders played a role in encouraging social unrest after the

Egyptian revolution of 2011 The 2011 Egyptian revolution, also known as the 25 January Revolution (;), began on 25 January 2011 and spread across Egypt. The date was set by various youth groups to coincide with the annual Egyptian "Police holiday" as a statement against ...

, and mentioned documents abroad believed to be in the possession of the international lawyer

Mahmoud Refaat Mahmoud Refaat (Arabic: محمود رفعت‎, romanized: Mahmood Rifaat; born April 25, 1978) is an international relations scholar (president of the European Institute for International Law and International Relations), writer, and lawyer. R ...

who was the spokesman of Sami Anan and the director of his presidential campaign abroad. On 12 February, Genena was arrested, and later also Moataz Wadnan, the journalist who had interviewed him for the

Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers ...

. In April 2018, Geneina was sentenced to 5 years in prison for "insulting the military", a sentence which was upheld in March 2019. In February 2023, Hicham Geneina was released after five years in prison for "terrorism" and "false information", then immediately prosecuted for the same charges by another Egyptian court This means that he can be arrested at any time is prosecuted in another case managed by the civil prosecutor's office of State Security.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Genena, Hisham Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century Egyptian judges Egyptian police officers Anti-corruption agencies Anti-corruption activists