Reuters news
written by Marwa Awad
Monday October 22, 2012
An Egyptian talk-show host faces a four-month jail term after a court convicted him of insulting President Mohamed Mursi, state media reported on Monday.
Tawfiq Okasha, whose show appears on his own channel, can appeal the sentence after paying 100 Egyptian pounds ($16.39) bail, a source in the court in southern Egypt said.
"Mursi is the President of all Egyptians and insulting him is like insulting the whole nation," Nasr El-Din Mahmoud Maghazy, who filed the case against Okasha, told Reuters.
The substance of the offending insult was not immediately available from court sources.
Okasha is known to have close ties to security officials in power during the reign of former longtime leader Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in a popular revolt last year, and for making anti-Islamic diatribes on air.
He faces another lawsuit in the criminal court on accusations of inciting people to kill Mursi.
The prosecutor had ordered Okasha's channel taken off the air but a court on Saturday said it could resume broadcasting.
Okasha had previously said in one of his talk shows that Mursi and his group "deserve to get killed". ($1 = 6.1015 Egyptian pounds)
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Sky news - Australia
written by Staff
Tuesday October 23, 2012
An Egyptian court has sentenced controversial television presenter Tawfiq Okasha to four months in prison for defaming Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi, state media report.
The court in the southern province of Luxor on Monday sentenced Okasha - who was not present at the trial - to four months in jail and ordered him to pay a fine of 100 Egyptian pounds (about $A15) following a lawsuit by a former MP Nasreddine Moghazi.
Okasha, who heads his own TV channel Al-Faraeen and is known for his lengthy anti-Islamist rants on a talk show, faces several lawsuits including a case for alleged incitement to kill Morsi, judicial sources said.
His channel was suspended on August 16 after it aired a show that was stridently anti-Morsi, a long-time member of the Muslim Brotherhood who quit the organisation when he was elected president in June.
On Saturday a court ruled that Al-Faraeen was allowed to resume broadcasting.
Last week Okasha was detained overnight for former convictions passed in absentia, after visiting a police station to check on the status of his court case for alleged incitement.
He was notified of two six-month convictions for issuing bad cheques and one-month terms for stealing electricity, and was then released again after spending nine hours in custody, according to a security source.
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