A Cairo criminal court yesterday delayed until November 21 the retrial of an Egyptian woman, known as the 'Iron Lady', who swindled Egyptians of LE587 million ($100 million)
and fled abroad for 22 years."The trial of Hoda Abdel-Moneim and the manager of her companies Sayed Askar will resume on November 21, after the court approved her lawyer's request to delay the hearings," legal sources said.Abdel-Moneim had lived in Greece since fleeing Egypt in 1987, escaping charges of forgery and embezzlement in bank loans. She was sentenced in absentia in 1996 to 64 years in prison.Ragaie Attia, Abdel-Moneim's lawyer, claimed that his client had optionally paid back all her debts before she came to Egypt. "Her return should be exploited to make others, who fled abroad, come back too," Attia said.
