Female journalist to sue Omar Sharif over slap

An Arab female journalist intends to sue Hollywood actor Omar Sharif for slapping her before a large crowd during an international film festival in Qatar last week, an Egyptian television station said on Thursday.

Aisha Al Douri said she was still shocked by the slap and that she kept smiling to prevent herself from crying and avert embarrassment in front of scores of journalists and fans during the festival in Doha.

“I have decided to take legal procedures against Omar Sharif for slapping me,” Douri, who works for Al Hurra news channel, told Dream 2 television.

Douri attacked the film festival management for putting pressure on her after she was slapped, adding that she was also asked to say she was not slapped.

“The management asked me to sign a statement saying that the video film shown on U-Tube and other sites was taken from an angle that gave the impression that Omar Sharif slapped me but that he did not,” she said.

“I felt very embarrassed and kept smiling to prevent myself from crying…I was invited to the festival as a journalist and I tried to have a photograph with Sharif not as a fan but as a journalist…I am not after fame at all,” she said.

The short film run on U-Tube last week showed the 79-year-old Egyptian actor, who has starred in many Hollywood films, was gradually getting annoyed by many journalists and fans shoving their way to have shots with him at the festival before he lost his temper and slapped Aisha before a shocked crowd.

He then placed his hands around his head and angrily said to her: “I have told you I would get to you afterwards… just put something in your brain.”

Newspapers in Egypt and other Arab countries as well as websites have launched a virulent attack on Sharif for losing control and slapping the girl.

“I am shocked at this campaign against me…they should take into consideration my age and my health condition,” Sharif was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

Sharif’s most famous Hollywood films are ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, ‘Doctor Zhivago ‘and ‘Funny Girl’. He has been nominated for an Academy Award and has won three Golden Globe Awards.

In 2003 the actor received a one-month suspended prison sentence for hitting a police man in a Parisian casino.

Four years later he was found guilty of "assaulting a Beverly Hills parking lot attendant and breaking his nose.

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