CAIRO, Sept 30 (Aswat Masriya) - A blank answer sheet should have been reported promptly in accordance with the regulations issued to exam observers, lawyer Ehab Ramzy said Wednesday, reacting to the administrative prosecution's decision to dismiss the "zero student's" case.

The prosecution had dismissed finally on Wednesday the case of highschool girl Mariam Malak, ruling that her allegations "were proven untrue". 

In a telephone interview with Aswat Masriya, Ramzy challenged the reasoning behind the decision.

"The prosecution said that there is no administrative crime even though there was one. The exam observers didn't file a report immediately after receiving a blank answer sheet. If the prosecution had actually investigated this crime, the truth would have been revealed, that Mariam's exam papers were tampered with,” Ramzy said.

Malak became the centre of nationwide controversy when she scored zero in all her final year exams in the general secondary school examinations, despite being a top student in all her previous years. 

She scored 96 and 98 percent in her first two years of high school but was shocked to learn that she got a zero in every single one of her seven final exams, barring her from her dream of pursuing university studies at medical school.

Last July the star pupil from the Upper Egyptian province of Assiut had contested her high school exam scores, claiming that her answer sheets were switched with another student's. She filed a case accusing the ministry of education of corruption. 

The prosecution had asked the student for a writing sample to compare it to her exam papers and said that both handwritings were identical, adding that a second forensics committee has opined that her exam papers were not switched. 

In August, Malak's first appeal was denied when the first government-appointed forensics committee in her hometown had ruled that the handwriting on the failed exam sheets matched hers.