CAIRO: An Egyptian court yesterday upheld a one-year prison sentence against former Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, who headed the government of deposed President Mohammed Mursi.
Kandil was sentenced in April, before Mursi’s July 3 downfall, for failing to implement a court ruling to nationalise a textile company sold off by the administration of autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Judge Khaled Hassan said the prison sentence must now be carried out.
Mursi appointed Kandil in July 2012, after the Muslim Brotherhood politician won Egypt’s first freely contested presidential election.
The sentence against Kandil related to a 2011 court ruling demanding the government repurchase textile company Tanta Flax and Oils from a Saudi Arabian investor who bought it in 2005.
Officials in the Kandil government had said renationalising state enterprises was not straightforward and the company had been broken up since it was sold to the foreign investor.
REUTERS
