The Court of Appeals accepted Saturday to review the appeal submitted by former member of parliament Hamdy Al-Fakharany on 30 December.
The appeal is against last week’s first degree court verdict to imprison him for four years on charges of blackmail and abuse of power.
The court sentenced Al-Fakharany to prison for four years and an EGP 100,000 fine. He was arrested in September on charges of demanding a bribe of EGP 5m to drop a corruption lawsuit he had filed earlier against businessman Samuel Thabet Zaki.
Al-Fakharany is a renowned anti-corruption activist and was originally suing Zaki to claim back a piece of land in Minya, which the businessman bought from the Nile Cotton Ginning Company in 2009. The company was privatised in 1997 and renationalised by court order after a lawsuit filed by Al-Fakharany in 2011.
He is known for filing a string of lawsuits exposing corruption before the 25 January Revolution in 2011, and is a vocal opponent of the Muslim Brotherhood. He was allegedly physically attacked by Muslim Brotherhood supporters in July 2012 and again in November 2012.
