Egyptian Islamist MP Caught In "Indecent Act" In Car With Girlfriend

Ali Wanis- 2nd from left with his Salafi buddies

It looks like those wacky Salafi Islamists who preach piety and modesty aren't above getting a little nookie on the side. Not something they should be doing if they're not married. Boys will be boys, Islamist or not.

Egyptian Ali Wanis, a cleric and MP for the uber conservative Salafi Al Nour Party, was allegedly found in a compromising situation in a car with his 19-year-old college girlfriend "Nesrine" on a Cairo-Alexandria highway. Apparently they were “engaged in an indecent act,” which means they were probably going at it in the back seat of his car. Naturally, he has denied it. Not that she was with him (since both were arrested), but that nothing untoward happened.  He claims she was just sick, and he was wiping her face, and that the police have it in for him after a recent run-in with a police officer. According to Wanis, it's also part of a scheme to discredit him and the Islamist political movement. Right. Sounds a little like the "nose job MP" Anwar al-Balkimi who lied about having plastic surgery, and blamed it on a liberal plot to smear Salafis.

Prosecutors would like to bring him in for questioning, but MPs have some sort of immunity. A source told Egyptian paper al-Youm al-Sabea:

“The normal legal procedure in this case is to send the prosecutor’s order to the People’s Assembly [Egypt’s lower house of parliament] on Saturday, so as to lift up the parliamentary immunity from the MP. Immunity must be lifted first and the parliament should give the permission for questioning the MP.”

The story goes:

According to the police officer, who was patrolling the highway on Thursday night, the MP’s car was parked in a no-parking area on the highway near the Egyptian city of Toukh. On approaching the car, the police officer found Wanis and Nesrine so both were arrested and taken to the police station, where a police report was filed.

And, of course, there have been the anti-police, pro-Wanis demonstrations of support.

Such hypocrisy.