Human Rights First Calls for Magnitsky Sanctions in Egyptian Bribery of Senator Menendez
Washington, D.C. – Human Rights First today called on the U.S. government to impose targeted financial and visa sanctions on a senior Egyptian official and a U.S. company for their apparent involvement in the bribery of former U.S. Senator Robert Menendez.
As the Justice Department showed in Menendez’s recent criminal trial, the Egyptian government carried out a complex scheme roughly between 2018 and 2022 to bribe Menendez into using his leadership position in Congress to benefit Egypt’s government. One of the scheme’s apparent purposes was to ensure U.S. military aid to Egypt was not blocked on human rights grounds.
To date, only Menendez himself and other U.S. citizens have faced legal consequences for this corruption. Drawing primarily on the Justice Department’s indictment against Menendez and a federal court’s ruling that affirmed his conviction after trial, Human Rights First submitted a recommendation to the Treasury and State Departments documenting apparently sanctionable acts of alleged corruption by an Egyptian official and a U.S. company.
“Egypt’s bribery of Senator Menendez was an attack on Congress’s role as a check on U.S. foreign policy, especially on arms sales and other security assistance,” said Sue Hendrickson, President and CEO of Human Rights First. “If the American public is to have confidence that their elected representatives actually work for them, the U.S. government needs to impose targeted sanctions and take other steps that show it will not tolerate this kind of attack from anyone, even a ‘major ally’ like Egypt. Trying to corruptly influence top U.S. officials will be perceived as worth the risk for foreign governments if the consequences of being caught fall only on the bribed and their intermediaries.”
In July 2024, a federal jury found Menendez guilty of 16 counts in his corruption trial, including bribery and acting as a foreign agent. In addition, Wael Hana, an Egyptian-American businessman, and Nadine Menendez, the senator’s wife, allegedly acted as intermediaries between the Egyptians and Menendez; Hana has been convicted and Ms. Menendez has been charged and is awaiting trial.
General Ahmed Helmy, a senior Egyptian intelligence official, and IS EG Halal, a New Jersey-based halal certification company owned by Hana, were also implicated in this scheme by the Justice Department’s indictment and evidence it presented at trial. Public reporting, the evidence at trial, and court documents make clear that General Helmy is “Egyptian Official-3,” one of several Egyptian officials the indictment identifies anonymously.
Thus far, the Justice Department does not appear to have brought charges against either General Helmy or IS EG Halal, nor have other U.S. or state agencies appeared to take action against them for their alleged corrupt conduct. Egyptian authorities have apparently remained silent on the role of their officials, while IS EG Halal has denied wrongdoing.
Nonetheless, the Justice Department’s evidence suggests that General Helmy and IS EG Halal engaged in acts that are sanctionable under the Treasury Department’s Global Magnitsky program. Financial sanctions under that program freeze an individual or company’s assets and make it illegal for U.S. persons to do business with them. On the same basis, General Helmy’s alleged corrupt acts also meet the criteria of the Section 7031(c) visa restriction program, which requires the State Department to revoke or deny a visa when it has “credible information” of a foreign government official’s involvement in corruption or human rights violations. The Justice Department’s information about General Helmy’s activities should easily meet that standard.
As set out in Human Rights First’s recommendation, the U.S. government’s own investigation indicates that General Helmy and IS EG Halal played critical roles in the bribery of Menendez. According to the indictment, General Helmy appears to have directed Hana and fielded queries from him and Nadine Menendez about what Egypt wanted. Also according to the indictment, IS EG Halal paid tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to the senator and his wife; those payments constitute financial support for alleged corruption and therefore satisfy the criteria for Magnitsky sanctions.
Because IS EG Halal currently holds a significant position in the flow of certain food exports to Egypt, Human Rights First recommends the Treasury Department accompany financial sanctions against the company with a general license or other form of authorization to allow an orderly winding down of its operations. Human Rights First also urges all relevant federal and state authorities to thoroughly investigate any possible criminal acts related to IS EG Halal’s activities, and to impose any appropriate civil or criminal penalties.
Menendez’s successor as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee blocked a portion of U.S. military financing to Egypt on human rights grounds after Egypt’s corrupt scheme was revealed, but it is unclear whether new congressional leaders will extend that hold. After Menendez was charged in September 2023, Human Rights First called for Congress to end military financing to Egypt and review the U.S. posture toward the country.
“The U.S. government far too often fails to enforce laws that should prevent security assistance from going to abusive regimes like Egypt’s,” said Adam Keith, Senior Director for Accountability at Human Rights First. “Members of Congress should insist that the outgoing and incoming administrations take meaningful steps to discourage abusive security partners from trying to bribe their way around congressional checks on U.S. military aid.”
