BBC News Online: World: Middle East

Egyptian polygamist gets hard labour

Suweirki admitted to nearly 20 marriages

Ragab al-Suweirki, a devout Muslim, was found guilty in a court in Cairo of having five wives at one time - one more than permitted - and to have done so on several occasions.

Suweirki, who is in his fifties, owns a string of clothes shops across Egypt and his case has riveted the country with its tales of brief unions and wedding-night divorces.

Wearing white prison robes, he remained composed while sentence was read out.

One of his wives, however, screamed: "May God take revenge from you, you want him to die in jail!"

Serial husband

Suweirki was arrested in May on return from a pilgrimage to Mecca after one of his wives told police he had exceeded the legal marriage limit.

He admits he has had 19 wives, but maintains he was only intentionally married to four at any one time.

The verdict read out in Cairo criminal court, however, said he had entered "brief unions" with 29 underage girls by having their ages falsified on official documents.

The legal age for marriage in Egypt is 16.

Two marriage registrars were given shorter hard labour terms for helping forge the documents.

Suweirki would stay married to the girls for a matter of hours or days, before giving them sums of money and divorcing them, the police said.

Defence lawyers tried to present Suweirki as a kind and generous man who had been targeted for being a financially successful Islamist.