A Giza misdemeanour appeals court has acquitted a little-known female singer who was convicted in February of "inciting debauchery and immorality" in a controversial music video that prosecutors charged contained "sexual overtones". In its ruling on Saturday, the court overturned the debauchery conviction of Laila Amer, cancelling a two-year jail sentence issued by a lower court. Two other men involved in creating the video were acquitted of the same debauchery charges. The producer and director had been handed a six-month prison sentence, while an actor in the video had been given three months. Amer and the two men were arrested in January following legal complaints filed by several lawyers over her song Bos Omak (Look At Your Mother), which is a pun on an Arabic expletive. Among those who filed complaints was Ahmed Mahran, head of the Cairo Centre for Political and Legal Studies. Amer was the second female singer to be sentenced to prison on debauchery charges in Egypt over the past few months. In December, pop singer Sheema Ahmed was handed a two-year jail sentence for "inciting debauchery and immorality" in a racy video in which she appeared wearing lingerie while suggestively eating a banana. The following month, Ahmed's sentence, which she had already started serving, was commuted to one year.
