Egyptian judge Hisham Geneina estimates the cost of corruption at about 600 billion Egyptian pounds ($66 billion, 60 billion euros) (AFP)
A Cairo appeals court has suspended a one-year prison sentence against the former head of Egypt's Central Auditing Authority Hisham Geneina, who was convicted of “spreading false news” after he alleged massive corruption in state institutions.
Geneina was sentenced to prison in July for “spreading false news with the goal of harming public interest” after he stated in 2015 that corruption had cost the country EGP 600 billion (approx $68 billion at the time) over a four-year period.
Geneina was also fined EGP 20,000 and released on bail pending his appeal against the sentence.
The appeals court suspended the sentence on Thursday for three years, with the sentence to be put into effect if the defendant is convicted of another crime within that period, according to a judicial source
Geneina was sacked by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in March after a fact-finding committee investigating his report on corruption concluded that he had misled the public by exaggerating the scale of corruption.
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