Egypt court jails four over theatre fire
Source: Reuters
CAIRO, March 14 (Reuters) - An Egyptian appeals court on Wednesday sentenced four government employees to jail terms ranging between one and three years for negligence over a 2004 theatre fire that killed 46 people, a judicial source said. A lower court had sentenced the four men in May of last year to ten years in jail, along with Mostafa Elwy, head of the authority for cultural centres and a member of the ruling National Democratic Party's policies committee, and three other officials from the authority. But the appeals court on Wednesday cleared Elwy and the three authority officials of responsibility for the Sept. 5 fire in Beni Suef, 100 km (60 miles) south of Cairo, which started in the theatre owned by the Culture Ministry when a candle being used as a prop fell over. Artists and intellectuals had demanded Culture Minister Farouk Hosni's resignation following the fire, and Hosni offered to quit but was asked to stay by the prime minister on the president's instructions. The judicial source added that the court had ordered the ministry of culture to pay compensation to the families of the dead and 17 people injured in the fire and to compensate the families of the deceased.
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