The Cairo criminal court sentenced former agriculture minister Salah Helal and his assistant Mohieddin el Saeed to ten years each over corruption charges and acquitted two others in the case.

Helal was found guilty of accepting bribes in return for easing legal procedures for a company to own 2,500 feddans of land in the Natroun Valley in Beheira.

Helal was arrested on September 7, on the same day he handed over his resignation as agriculture minister.

The court fined Helal EGP one million and his assistant half a million pounds in the case and ordered them to return the gifts they received, while exempted the two other defendants from the punishment (Chairman of Cairo Three A Group Ayman el Gameel, a service provider for the trade of agricultural commodities and Mohamed Fouda, a journalist impostor).

Source: MENA