BENI SUEF: An Egyptian appeals court on Wednesday threw out the jail sentences of four culture ministry officials convicted of negligence in a fire and stampede that killed 50 people in a theater south of Cairo in 2005. Four other officials, who had also been convicted in the case, had their sentences reduced to between one and three years in jail. On Sept. 5, 2005, more than 150 people were watching a play inside a theater in Beni Suef, a farming town about 90 km south of Cairo, when an actor knocked over a candle igniting a paper-filled set and setting off a stampede. In a scramble for the one available exit, 50 people were fatally crushed and some 60 were injured. Last May, the eight officials, including Mustafa Alwy, chairman of the Culture Palaces Authority which ran the theater, were found guilty of negligence in applying fire and safety measures, and were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment each. The other seven officials were heads of various departments in the town s culture offices and theater. The appeals court on Wednesday ruled that Alwy and three of the other officials from the group were not guilty and set them free. The tragedy was Egypt s deadliest fire since a blaze swept through a crowded passenger train south of Cairo on Feb. 20, 2002, killing 370 people.
