CAIRO, June 18 (Aswat Masriya) – The Egyptian actor Ahmed Ezz was sentenced in absentia on Saturday to three years in prison for the “defamation” of the actress Zeina.

Ezz had unofficially married Zeina and the two had twins, which Ezz had denied later when Zeina took him to court. He also refused to do a DNA test to prove that the child was not his.

Zeina’s defence team had filed a lawsuit against Ezz, accusing him of defaming his wife by denying the paternity of the twins, Ezz al-Din and Zein al-Din.

Last June, after a long legal journey, an Egyptian family court ruled that the twins were Ezz’s children. Ezz appealed the ruling.

Ezz, on the other hand, accused Zeina of forging the twins’ birth certificate, even after the court ruled that the twins were his children.

Although international conventions ensure a child's right to a name and a lineage, proof of lineage in Egypt often takes years to sort out in courts due to the absence of a provision in Egyptian law that requires litigants to conduct DNA analysis.