Cairo- An Egyptian military appeals court on Sunday upheld a five-year sentence against the country’s former auditor for disseminating false news about the military, his lawyer said.
Hesham Genena can still challenge the ruling a final time at Egypt’s highest military court of appeals, added Ali Taha.
Genena was arrested in February last year following incendiary comments in which he claimed that the former chief-of-staff, Sami Annan, was in possession of documents incriminating the country’s leadership. He said the documents were kept abroad. He was sentenced to five years in prison in April for insulting the armed forces.
Annan himself was arrested in January.
Genena led Egypt’s top watchdog agency until President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi fired him in 2016 following an investigation that concluded he had misled the public on the scale of government corruption. Genena said corruption had cost the country billions of dollars in 2015 alone. He later said he was misquoted.
