Egypt’s leading activist gets 5 years; 2 others get 4 years

CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian lawyer says a court in Cairo has sentenced one of the country’s most prominent activists to five years in prison on charges of spreading false news. Alaa Abdel-Fattah was first sentenced in 2014 on charges of taking part in an unauthorized protest and allegedly assaulting a police officer. He was released in 2019 after serving a five-year term but was rearrested again later that year, in a crackdown that followed anti-government protests. A lawyer says the Emergency State Security Court in Cairo on Monday also sentenced Abdel-Fattah’s former lawyer and a fellow activist to four years each, on the same charges. The three were tried together.