Egyptian authorities on Tuesday released the country’s former anti-graft chief after serving a five-year prison sentence for allegedly insulting and spreading false news about the military, his lawyers said.
Hesham Genena, a former judge, walked free from a police station and returned to his home in New Cairo’s Eastern District, attorney Hossam Lotfy said.
His daughter, Shorouk Genena, has posted pictures on Facebook showing her father embracing his family. “Baba is out, finally,” she wrote.
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Genena was taken to the Supreme State Security Attorney’s Office on Tuesday following his release from prison, where he was questioned on several allegations of spreading fake news, another lawyer Naser Amin said.
The allegations are related to comments he made in 2016 about the extent of government corruption, Amin said. Prosecutors have ordered his release pending an investigation, he added.
Former Egyptian anti-graft official Hesham Genena has been released from prison. (Fox News)
Genena, arrested in February 2018, served a five-year sentence on military contempt charges. The sentence was linked to inflammatory comments in which she claimed that the former army chief of staff, Sami Annan, was in possession of documents incriminating the country’s leadership. He said the documents were stored abroad.
Annan was arrested shortly after announcing his intention to challenge President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in the 2018 election. The president won with 97% of the vote in a race that saw no real challengers.
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Annan was sentenced to nine years in prison on charges of fraudulent voter registration, violation of regulations and incitement against the military over a video he released declaring his candidacy. He was released in December 2019 on health grounds, Amin said at the time.
Genena headed Egypt’s top supervisory agency until el-Sissi fired him in 2016 following an investigation that concluded he had misled the public about the extent of government corruption. Genena said corruption cost the country billions of dollars in 2015 alone. He later claimed he was misquoted by a local news outlet.
Genena has long come under fire from pro-government media, well-connected businessmen and senior officials since she was named in 2012, but her massive corruption allegations have caused a particular stir, with media outlets calling it branded a traitor and fervent supporter of the outlawed Muslim. Brotherhood.
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El-Sissi appointed a commission that ultimately accused Genena of misleading the public with the support of unnamed “foreign” parties.
