Eleven contractors were also charged in the same case, newspapers quoted state prosecutor Maher Abdel Wahed as saying. "It is the most important corruption case this year," he added. The chief executive officers of Petrozeit Petroleum Company and Qarun Oil Company, Hosni Jaballah Attiya and Munir Abdul Hameed Mohammed Tukhi, are among the accused, the newspapers said. The two companies operate oilfields. Petrozeit is a joint venture between state-owned Egyptian General Petroleum Company (EGPC) and Canada's Dover Petroleum. Qarun is a joint venture between EGPC and two US companies, Apache Corporation and Seagull Energy Corporation. The five oil executives are accused of having received kickbacks totalling 2.1 million Egyptian pounds (340,000 dollars) from the 11 contractors. Abdel Wahed said the contractors had made monthly payments to the five executives since 1995 in order to receive a steady stream of contracts and to be given immunity in case of execution delays or defaults. The five executives were remanded in custody while the 11 contractors were released on bail, the newspapers said. P.I.N// Arab Times