Actress Menna Shalaby to Stand Trial on Jan. 5 over Possessing Drugs

Egyptian actress Menna Shalaby will stand trial at the North Cairo Criminal Court on January 5 on charges of possessing controlled narcotics with the intent of using them.

This came one day after the public prosecution ordered to refer her to the criminal court. The drugs had been found in her luggage at Cairo International Airport last month.

Shalaby, 40, who is one of the best-known Egyptian actresses of her generation, grabbed headlines over the past weeks after she was stopped on 25 November by airport authorities for finding suspected substances in her luggage.

After being interrogated by the prosecution, she was released hours later on EGP 50,000 bail pending investigation, with the prosecution ordering the seized substances to be tested.

The prosecution's new statement, which comes nearly one month after the incident, charged the actress with "possessing hash narcotic with the intent of using it without legal authorisation."

The case, said the prosecution, centred on five testimonies of the airport workers who inspected the actress's luggage, on police investigations and on the recordings of the surveillance cameras at the place where Shalaby was stopped by the airport authorities.

In addition, the prosecution said that the assigned chemical laboratory's examination of the seized substances proved that they "contained two narcotics – namely hash and cannabis – both of which fall under the Drug Schedule I of the country's drugs law."

Shalaby, who denied the charges during the prosecution inquiry, was returning from the US when the substances were found by the Egyptian customs authorities in her luggage.