Court upholds prison sentence of former Egyptian presidential candidate
An Egyptian court has reaffirmed a one-year prison sentence for the ex-Egyptian presidential candidate, Ahmed Tantawy and his campaign manager, Mohamed Abou El-Diar, following charges of forging election documents.
The sentence and the charges, which were announced by Tantawy’s legal team on December 17th, will also include labour, according to Reuters.
Tantawy was reportedly the most leading figure to be up-against Abdel Fattah al-Sisi last year for a third term. But Al-Sisi won 89.6% of the vote.
Tantawy suspended his campaign months before the election, stating that arrests and harassments targeting his family and allies stopped him from gaining the required amount of public endorsements to be on the ballot.
Egyptian authorities have denied any misconduct and have claimed that Tantawy’s campaign issued unauthorised copies of endorsement forms to gain public backing.
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The original court decision from May, upheld by Egypt’s Misdemeanour Appeals Court on December 16th, prohibits Tantawy from running for office for five years and has ordered him to be fined 20,000 Egyptian pounds.
Human rights lawyer and member of Tantawy’s defence, Khaled Al, said in a Facebook post on December 17th that the appeal process had suffered.
Ali said lawyers struggled for months to confirm court dates, as hearings were not shown in official schedules and case files did not appear in court registries.
The public prosecution was not “immediately available” to comment on the ruling or on the allegations made by Ali.
In the Egyptian presidential election last year, the runner-up, Hazem Omar gained 4.5% of the vote. The other candidates, Abdel-Sanad and Farid Zahran, gained the remainder of the vote.
Reuters
