Egypt upholds 1-year jail term for anti-corruption czar

By Hussein al-Qabbani and Sayyid Fathi

CAIRO (AA) – An Egyptian court Thursday upheld a suspended one-year jail term handed down against Hisham Geneina, a former anti-corruption czar, for promoting "false information" regarding government corruption, according to a judicial source.

The source, who spoke anonymously as he was not authorized to speak to media, told Anadolu Agency that the suspended one-year jail sentence would not be applied for another three years.

Osama al-Shashtawi, a member of Geneina’s defense team, told Anadolu Agency that the sentence could still be appealed within the next 60 days.

Ali Taha, another lawyer for Geneina, told Anadolu Agency that the suspended sentence could be brought into effect if Geneina publically disparaged the government.

In July, a court slapped Geneina, a former head of Egypt’s Central Auditing Organization (CAO), with a suspended one-year jail sentence for allegedly disseminating "false information" about government financial corruption.

Geneina was sacked as CAO chief by President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi after making assertions that government corruption had cost Egypt as much as $75 billion over the period from 2012 to 2015.

Widespread government corruption was a main factor behind Egypt’s 2011 popular uprising, which forced autocratic President Hosni Mubarak to step down after three decades in power.