An Egyptian appeals court on Tuesday overturned the conviction of the deputy governor of Cairo for negligence in a September 2008 rockslide that killed more than 100 people. The official, Mahmoud Yassin, was sentenced in May to five years in prison for manslaughter and unintentional damage for failing to take steps to demolish unlicensed and haphazardly built homes in Duwaiqa on Cairo’s eastern outskirts.
Huge boulders falling off a cliff crushed ramshackle dwellings in the impoverished shantytown in 2008, prompting an outcry that the government was failing to protect the poor.
The court also overturned the conviction of another state employee who was involved and reduced to one year the prison sentences of six other employees convicted in the case.
It gave no reason for its decision but said it would elaborate later.
Some Cairo districts have a density of 100,000 people per square mile, with residents packed into neighbourhoods without basic services.