A former high-ranking Egyptian government official was sentenced Wednesday to seven years in jail and fined the equivalent of 400 dollars for taking bribes, court sources said.
A Cairo criminal court handed down the sentence against the former governor of Giza, Maher al-Gindy, who had maintained accusations against him were "deceitful" and "contemptible" when the trial opened in last November.
The director of the justice ministry's department for illicit earnings, Ali Ismail Ibrahim, was sentenced to five years and fined 1,000 Egyptian pounds (about 200 dollars) for complicity in the case, court sources said.
Ibrahim, who was convicted of knowing what Gindy was doing and turning a blind eye to it, was also dismissed from his position, the sources added, according to AFP. Six others were acquitted.
Gindy, whose governorate includes the Giza Pyramids just outside the capital city of Cairo, had been charged with accepting one million Egyptian pounds (245 thousand dollars) as a bribe from businessmen.
The charge sheet said that was in exchange for granting the group a 52-hectare plot of land on the desert road between Cairo and Alexandria. Gindy and Ibrahim can appeal the verdict. (albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
