The Ministry of Interior announced on Thursday evening, 22 October 2026, ending the service of a police member “for departing from the requirements of official duty inside one of the metro train carriages”, after the spread on social media of a video clip in which a man in civilian clothes carrying a weapon appears receiving money from a number of street vendors inside the metro.
The statement did not refer to the video, did not specify the nature of the violation, nor the name or rank of the police member, and did not mention whether the ministry referred the incident to the Public Prosecution. It said that the decision comes “within the framework of the Ministry of Interior’s keenness to adhere to the rules of job discipline”, and stressed the need for all members of the police force to abide by the requirements of official duty and the constants that govern police work. Users on social media circulated claims that the money was in exchange for allowing the vendors to sell inside the metro carriages, and no official confirmation of this account was issued.
The Egyptian Penal Code, in Article 103, considers every public official who requests for himself or for others, or accepts or takes a promise or gift to perform an act of his job, a bribe-taker, and in Article 104 punishes the official who does so “to refrain from an act of his job or to breach its duties” with life imprisonment and double the fine stipulated in Article 103.
Photo: Faris El-Gwely via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
