Egypt’s prominent opposition figure Ahmed Tantawy alongside his campaign manager have been convicted with a one-year jail term, labour inclusive and has to pay a fine. An Egyptian court upheld the verdict on Tuesday, December 17, accusing him of falsify election documents.
A court in Egypt has approved a one-year jail sentence with labour against a former presidential aspirant, Ahmed Tantawy and his campaign manager Mohamed Abou El-Diar on charges of falsifying election documents, according to Tantawy’s legal team on Tuesday.
Tantawy, a former presidential hopeful was the most prominent figure to challenge incumbent president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi last year for a third term, which he won with 89.6% of the vote.
Let’s recall that he had suspended his campaign before the election, citing harassment and arrests targeting dozens of his allies and family members that prevented him from securing the required number of public endorsements to appear on the ballot. Egyptian authorities after the allegations had denied any wrongdoing and accused Tantawy’s campaign of distributing unauthorised copies of endorsement forms to gather public support.
The original court decision in May, reaffirmed by Egypt’s Misdemeanour Appeals Court on Monday, bars Tantawy from running for office for five years and orders him to pay a fine of 20,000 Egyptian pounds (approx. $395).
According to Khaled Ali, a prominent human rights lawyer and member of Tantawy’s defence team in a post on Facebook on Tuesday, the appeal process was marred by irregularities. Ali added that lawyers struggled for months to confirm court dates, with hearings appearing absent from official schedules and case files missing from court registries, information that is yet to be confirmed.
