A Cairo Criminal Court adjourned on Saturday the first session in the trial of chief editor of Al-Ahram Arabic news website Hisham Younis and journalist Ahmed Amer on charges of “publishing false news” about the country’s former justice minister Ahmed El-Zend.
The session was adjourned to 29 June to inform Amer of the proceedings, as he did not attend today's session. Younis attended the session with an Al-Ahram-appointed lawyer.
The court also imposed an EGP 200 fine on the prosecution for not notifying both Younis and Amer of their referral to criminal court in January.
The state-owned Al-Ahram Arabic website published a story in 2014 alleging that El-Zend used his post as the head of the Judges Club to illegally sell part of the club’s property in Port Said to his relative.
El-Zend had occupied since 2009 the position of head of the Judges Club, an unofficial but powerful institution where over 90 percent of Egypt’s judges are members.
El-Zend was appointed justice minister in May 2015, though he was sacked after less than a year in office for making public statements that were interpreted as an insult to the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.
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