(AFP Photo)
Nasr City Misdemeanour Court acquitted on Monday Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim of the charge of failing to carry out a court verdict.
The court had sentenced Ibrahim to two years in prison last week for the same charge. He was also initially suspended from his position and asked to pay an EGP 2000 fine.
However, the sentence was not carried out following a successful appeal by the minister, which was accepted by the court on Monday, reported state-owned Al-Ahram. It ordered his acquittal after Ibrahim brokered reconciliation with the plaintiffs.
Former political prisoners Aly Ahmed and Abdel Aleem Selim had previously filed a lawsuit against Ibrahim, accusing him of failing to carry out two court verdicts issued by the Administrative Judiciary Court, granting them EGP 25,000 each as compensation for political detention from 1994 to 1996.
Article 123 of the penal code states: “Any public employee who refrains from carrying out a court verdict is to be punished by imprisonment and suspension.”
In a statement by the Interior Ministry following the issuance of the first verdict, the ministry said that it is devoted to carrying out all compensation verdicts issued before the 25 January Revolution. It said EGP 84.65m worth of compensations have been paid this year to fulfil 4,426 court verdicts, implying that the process of paying compensations is time-consuming. It added that the ministry is coordinating with the Ministry of Finance in order to pay for the accumulating verdicts, some of which dating back to the 1980s.
