CAIRO - An Egyptian appeals court yesterday found the owner of a crowded passenger ferry that caught fire and sank in the Red Sea in 2006 guilty of manslaughter and sentenced him to seven years in jail.

CAIRO - An Egyptian appeals court yesterday found the owner of a crowded passenger ferry that caught fire and sank in the Red Sea in 2006 guilty of manslaughter and sentenced him to seven years in jail.

The verdict was a reversal of a 2008 court decision exonerating ferry owner Mamdouh Ismail, a member of Egypt's upper house of parliament at the time of the disaster, of any blame in the accident that killed more than 1000 people.

Ismail, who was found guilty of both manslaughter and negligence after prosecutors appealed the initial not guilty verdict, was tried in absentia because he left for Britain after the ferry disaster.

Two other people, including the head of the ferry company's fleet, were sentenced to three years injail. - Reuters