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Egypt: Editor sentenced to six months jail over President’s ‘false’ ill-health story Thu. March 27, 2008 05:15 am.- By Bonny Apunyu. - (SomaliNet) A newspaper editor was yesterday sentenced to six months jail with labour by an Egyptian court sentenced for publishing false news about President Hosni Mubarak's health, but let him go free pending appeal, judicial sources said. A source confirmed that the Egyptian court in the Boulak district of Cairo found Ibrahim Issa, outspoken editor of the independent daily Al-Dustour, guilty of damaging the national economy. It let him go free after he paid a bond of 200 Egyptian pounds. The sentence came from a low-level misdemeanours court, and Issa is expected to appeal to a higher court. Issa has been free and working normally throughout the trial, one of several recent prosecutions of newspaper editors for publishing offences. Press freedom and human rights group said the prosecutions are an attempt to silence critics. Rumours about the health of Mubarak, 79, were widespread in late August and early September but subsided when he appeared repeatedly on television. The case against Issa is that his reports on Mubarak led to short-term capital flight. Central bank officials told the court that investments worth $350 million did leave the country on August 29 and 30, the days on which al-Dustour published reports on the rumours. But they also said they could not be certain there was any link between the outflow and the rumours. One of them said the short-term outflow could have been damaging if it had continued. The capital flight coincided with concern about the international impact of the liquidity crunch caused by losses in the U.S. home loan market. Shortly before the rumours began, bankers said that foreign investors had dumped about a third of their Egyptian treasury bills, worth about $1.7 billion. Issa, who regularly attacks Mubarak and his family in print in a way that would not have been possible in previous decades, has had several run-ins with the courts. He was one of four Egyptian editors sentenced to one year in jail and fined 20,000 pounds last September for defaming Mubarak and his politician son Gamal. In that case too, the editors avoided going to jail by paying a bond.-Reuters News Category: Africa Latest Headlines Latest News Bangladesh: 8 killed, dozens injured as trains collid... Indonesia: Fuel prices set to rise by 30 per cent India: Militant group claims responsibility for Jaipu... Afghanistan to seek $50 billion more aid for five yea... Afghanistan: 18 killed in suicide attack in western A... Nigeria: Gunmen hijack US vessel in Niger Delta, dem... Senegal: Teachers' pay strike enter second week South Africa: Police beef up patrols in township aft... Somali gunmen abduct Kenyan teacher at Mogadishu Un... Zimbabwe's run-off presidential election postponed <... More News...