The sentence, issued by a Cairo State Security Misdemeanor Court, is final and cannot be appealed.

Abdel-Hady, 68, who is one of the founders of the opposition Democratic Civil Movement, was accused by the prosecution of spreading and airing false news and misusing a social media platform, as well as working with a terrorist organisation.

According to his lawyer, the case was related to an article the accused published online in 2018, for which he was arrested and released on bail at the time.

Ali also revealed on his Facebook account that the activist, who gained huge popularity during the Mubarak era for criticising and standing in court against privatisation policies, was released Monday pending investigations by the High State Security Prosecution in another case.

Abdel-Hady has been in pre-trial detention for more than two years following his arrest in January 2019

Lawyer Tarek El-Awady – a member of the Presidential Pardon Committee – said on Monday that it was expected that Abdel-Hady was going to receive a presidential pardon within hours as a new group of pretrial detainees from activists began to be released in the past 24 hours.

Additional batches of detainees who have been granted presidential pardons would be released on Monday and Thursday, El-Awady said earlier on Sunday.