An Egyptian court on Sunday acquitted five of six defendants of Al-Salam 98 ferryboat fire case that killed more than 1,000 passengers on board in early 2006,the official MENA news agency reported.
The Misdemeanor Court of the Egyptian port of Safaga found the owner of the ferry Mamdouh Ismail Mohammed Ali and four other defendants not guilty in the case.
Only Salah Gomaa, captain of another ferryboat, was sentenced to six months in jail and a fine of 10,000 Egyptian pounds (about 1,887 U.S. dollars) after being convicted of failing to respond to the appeals for help from the sinking ferry, said the report.
Shortly after the court's decision, prosecutor general Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud announced in Cairo he was appealing against the verdict of the Safaga court.
The Al-Salam 98 ferryboat, carrying some 1,400 passengers, caught fire and sank into the Red Sea en route from Saudi Arabian port of Dhaba to the Egyptian Red Sea port of Safaga in February, 2006.
A total of 1,034 people, most of them Egyptians, died in the maritime disaster.
Source:Xinhua
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