A court accepted the appeal of journalist and novelist Ahmed Nagi and repealed the verdict he had received of a two-year prison sentence, reported local media.
The repeal ruled of the retrial of Nagi, who was held on charges of “publishing obscene sexual content.”
The author of the controversial novel “The Use of Life” was temporarily released in January after spending almost a year in prison.
Nagi received a two-year prison sentence in 2016 and was accused of “violating public modesty”, after a chapter of his novel “The Use of Life” was published in Akhbar Al-Adab, a subsidiary of state-owned Akhbar Al-Youm.
Local media reported that a man filed a lawsuit against Nagi in 2015 as the chapter of his novel caused him “disturbance in the heartbeat and severe fatigue.”
The editor-in-chief of the journal, Tarek Al-Taher, was also sentenced to pay a fine of EGP 10,000 for publishing the content.
The case of Nagi sparked controversy in international media over freedom of expression and jailing writers in cases related to publishing.
