Former top auditor Hisham Geneina was sentenced to one year in prison by the Cairo Misdemeanour Court on Thursday.

Geneina did not attend the session on Thursday, for the third time in a row. The court ordered him to pay EGP 10,000 bail to terminate the prison sentence and EGP 20,000 as a fine.

Geneina, who used to be the head of the Central Auditing Organisation (CAO), was charged with spreading false news about corruption rates in Egypt.

The former top auditor was dismissed from his position following a presidential decree issued in March.

His dismissal was preceded by a “fact-finding” committee ordered by President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to look into the accuracy of his claims, in relation to Geneina’s statements that claimed public funds amounting to EGP 600bn were wasted due to state corruption in 2015.