CAIRO: In an official decree, President Hosni Mubarak pardoned Al-Dostour Editor Ibrahim Eissa from the two-month jail sentence the latter received for "publishing false information of a nature to disturb public order or security, state-TV announced late Monday. In August 2007 Al-Dostour published articles suggesting that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is in ill-health. In March the New Cairo criminal court found in favor of the prosecution's claim that the articles had a detrimental effect on the national economy. On Sept. 28, the Abbaseyya appeals court sentenced him to two months imprisonment. A day later, head of the Journalists' Syndicate Makram Mohamed Ahmed petitioned Egypt's Prosecutor General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud to stop the implementation of the prison sentence against Eissa. Eissa's defense team has also petitioned for this. Sourced told Daily News Egypt that Ahmed was the one mediated for the presidential pardon.
