CAIRO, July 31 (Aswat Masriya) - A Cairo court sentenced in absentia Ahram Gate journalist Ahmed Amer to a year in jail on charges of spreading false news regarding former minister of justice Ahmed al-Zend.

The court also ordered an EGP 10,000 fine for the editor-in-chief of the state-owned news portal Hesham Younes.

Zend, who was the head of Egypt's Judges Club between 2009 and 2015, filed a lawsuit against the journalists after publishing a report on Ahram Gate in September 2014, in which they accused him of selling a land owned by the club in Port Said governorate to a relative at below market prices.

The report claimed that Zend sold 508.5 square meters of land owned by the club to a relative of his wife for EGP 18,000 per square meter. The article provided documents which proved that land rate in that location at this period of time was EGP 53,000 per square meter.

Although Zend filed the report in August 2014, both journalists weren't referred to the Criminal Court except in January 2016. 

Zend was appointed as a minister of justice in May 2015. He was fired after less than a year in office over remarks about Islam's Prophet Muhammad that were considered to be blasphemous.