Former Egyptian minister sent to 10 years in jail

A court in Egypt Thursday sentenced Salah Abdel-Maksoud, who served as the information minister in the ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi's regime, to 10 years in jail and fined 3.5 million Egyptian pounds ($489,000) on charges of wasting public funds worth 48 million pounds.

The court also convicted former head of the Broadcast Engineering Sector at the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) Amr Abdul Ghaffar Al Khafif on similar charges. The pair was accused of being responsible for the alleged theft by protesters of two state TV and radio broadcast vehicles, state-run MENA news Agency reported.

Morsi was removed by the military in July 2013 after mass protests against his one-year rule. The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist organisation Morsi was associated with, has been blacklisted by Egypt's new leadership as "a terrorist group" and its members have been banned by court order from running in presidential and parliamentary elections.

Hundreds of Morsi supporters have been handed lengthy jail terms and death sentences after speedy trials since Morsi's overthrow. A massive security crackdown on his supporters has left about 1,000 dead while thousands of others were arrested.

Morsi himself is currently in custody for trials over the 2011 jailbreak, espionage, ordering the killing of protesters, insulting the judiciary and leaking classified documents to Qatar.