CAIRO: A judge overturned Monday the conviction and two-year prison sentence of an exiled Egyptian-American academic and outspoken critic of the regime, paving the way for his return home. Saad Eddin Ibrahim was among the first Egyptians to publicly criticize a possible scenario of inheritance of power, resulting in his imprisonment in 2000. The former Bush administration publicly criticized Ibrahim s incarceration at the time. Judge Ashraf Sheta overturned Ibrahim s August conviction of damaging Egypt s reputation. It was one of a series of lawsuits filed by government sympathizers against the sociologist for criticizing the regime in his writings and advocating the US to make its annual $2 billion aid to the country contingent on political reform. The cases were sparked in party by an August 2007 column in the Washington Post by Ibrahim accusing President Hosni Mubarak of squeezing all opposition to engineer an unpopular father-son succession. Ibrahim s lawyer, Shady Talat, said Monday that there are still eight pending complaints against his client, but that he is optimistic they will all be dropped. Ibrahim was quoted earlier this week saying that he would probably return to Egypt if he was acquitted on Monday. Ibrahim s American-born wife, Barbara, said she expected her husband to end his two-year exile once the last of the lawsuits are taken care of. He is very eager to come back to his country, she told the Associated Press. I think he will be here over the summer, but I would like to see a more solid indication that all the legal challenges are over. In 2000, Ibrahim was charged with tarnishing Egypt s reputation and spent three years in and out of prison in a cycle of trials and appeals before the case was finally overturned by the country s highest appellate court. Ibrahim s reputation grew internationally as one of the most prominent critics of the regime and in May 2007 he spoke about Egypt with then President George W. Bush at a summit for international dissidents. A few days later, the US House of Representatives tabled legislation to withhold $200 million in military aid until Cairo took steps to curb police abuses and stop arms smuggling into the neighboring Gaza Strip. Ibrahim s critics in Egypt maintained there was a connection between the two events and filed suits claiming he had damaged the country s economy. In the past two years, government sympathizers have filed these kinds of suits against outspoken critics and journalists resulting in several prison sentences. -Additional reporting by Daily News Egypt.
