Aly Salam has been suspended from the USATT and all USATT activities for a period of 6 months, beginning March 4, 2006.  This is the result of having been found guilty of the following misconduct during and after his conducting an ITTF Umpires and Referees Committee (URC) election at the 2005 World Championships in Shanghai:

1. Collecting the paper ballots from the 8 URC members during the election, turning his back to the group, opening the votes for the two candidates, then destroying the ballots without letting anyone else see them, and then falsely announcing that Albert Rooijmans was the winning candidate.

2. After becoming aware that the URC members had subsequently discussed their votes and found out the vote was actually a 4-4 tie, asking Fernando Aguilar to lie in Mr. Salam's favor in regard to what Mr. Aguilar had told the other URC members in the subsequent discussion of their votes, so Mr. Salam could say that he was correct in counting a 5-3 win for Mr. Rooijmans instead of a 4-4 tie.