CAIRO: Egypt billionaire telecoms tycoon Naguib Sawiris saw a second case against him thrown out by a court on Saturday. Sawiris had been accused by an Islamist lawyer of insulting Islam by posting images of Mickey Mouse in a full Islamic beard on his personal Twitter account last year. Many conservative Muslims had been angered by Sawiris, a Christian, when he posted in June an image of Mickey Mouse with a beard and his counterpart, Minnie, wearing a full-face veil. The court said that there had been no direct personal damage to the plaintiffs, state media reported. Saturday's verdict comes less than a week after another court dismissed a similar case against Sawiris, over the same cartoon. The controversy saw massive numbers of Mobinil's staff and customers leave the company, accusing Sawiris of insulting Islam. Sawiris is also a co-founder of the Free Egyptians (Al-Masryeen Al-Ahrar), a liberal secular party. Mobinil reportedly lost some 300,000 customers during what was known locally as the “Mickey row.” However, Sawiris said the impact had eased by October. The plaintiff in this case, MP Mamdouh Ismail, a hardline Islamist lawyer with the ultra-conservative Salafist al-Nour party has been pushing for trials of anyone seen as insulting Islam. In February, Egypt's most famous comedic actor, Adel Imam, received a three-month jail sentence for insulting Islam, based on characters he had portrayed in film and on the stage. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/B2bc3 Tags: Court, featured, Islam, Mickey Row, Sawiris Section: Egypt, Latest News, Religion
