An Egyptian court sentenced a blogger to four years in prison on Thursday for writing online entries that insulted Islam and the president.

It was Egypt's first prosecution of a blogger. In a brief, five-minute session in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, a judge handed down the verdict to convict 22-year-old Abdel Karrem Nabil on charges of "insulting Islam" and inciting sedition, as well as the charge of insulting President Hosni Mubarak.

Prosecutors accused Nabil of criticizing his former university, an Islamic institution. They noted Nabil had called the Al-Azhar University "the university of terrorism" on his blog, condemning it for suppressing free thought.

As the verdict was read Thursday, Nabil, wearing a grey T-shirt, gave no reaction from the defendant's pen. Guards immediately escorted him to a prison truck and he did not comment to reporters.

The former law student pleaded not guilty to all the charges and had faced a possible maximum sentence of nine years in prison.

Assuming the blogger handle "Kareem Amer," Nabil used the online journal to deride Mubarak's regime, calling him a dictator.

In another post, Nabil wrote that Al-Azhar University "stuffs its students' brains and turns them into human beasts … teaching them that there is not place for differences in this life."

His writings about being frustrated with conservative Muslims led to a prosecutor submitting a claim against him for his "incitement to hatred of Islam."

Upon learning about the comments, the university expelled Nabil and pressed prosecutors to put him on trial.

The case outraged the Egyptian Human Rights Organization, which pleaded for Nabil's release. The head of the organization, Hafiz Abou Saada, described the verdict as "very tough."

"This is a strong message to all bloggers who are put under strong surveillance that the punishment will [be] very strong," he told the Associated Press.

Egypt arrested a number of bloggers in 2006, most of them for connections to Egypt's pro-democracy reform movement. Nabil was arrested in November, but while other bloggers were freed, Nabil was put on trial — a sign of the sensitivity to his writings on religion.

With files from the Associated Press