CAIRO, Sep. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian Criminal Court decided in its session on Sunday to postpone trial of former Egyptian Information Minister Anas el-Fiqqi till Monday for an appropriate decision.

The former minister was accused of granting the signal of the local football premier league matches for free to several private channels, which caused wasting around 1,888 million U.S. dollar of the public funds.

The court's decision came at the conclusion of hearing the public prosecution and the defendant's pleading.

During the pleading, the prosecution called for a maximum sentence for Fiqqi, accusing him of not supporting the TV resources and its debts which estimated about 14 billion Egyptian Pounds (2.35 billion U.S. dollars), noting that he intentionally harmed the Egyptian TV by exempting the private channels from paying for the signal of the Egyptian TV.

The prosecution also reviewed the evidences which convicted el- Fiqqi and asserted that he deliberately exempted al-Ahli, Modern Sport, Dream and al-Hayyat satellite channels from the payment.

The prosecutor noted that el-Fiqqi did all these to bargain with these channels for a favorable stance towards the former leadership.