Whereabouts of Egypt’s ex-premier Shafiq 'unknown' since deportation from UAE, says lawyer

I don’t have any information about the whereabouts of the former Egyptian premier and presidential hopeful Ahmed Shafiq, the defendant’s lawyer, Dina Adly Hussein, said today.

Shafiq was reported to have not been seen since an official at Cairo airport recently said that he landed in the Egyptian capital of Cairo yesterday evening after the United Arab Emirates (UAE)’s authorities deported him to Egypt.

“The former army general was forced to leave the Gulf country, where he had been living in exile since 2012, after he announced his candidacy for presidential elections next year,” Hussein said in a statement on Facebook.

Citing local media reports, Hussein said that Shafiq was reported to have arrived in Egypt “and is residing in a hotel in Cairo.”

“So far the general [Shafiq] has not called me and I was not summoned to meet him,” Shafiq’s lawyer stressed.

Hussein called on the Egyptian authorities “to allow me to meet him to check on him and to verify whether or not he has actually arrived in Egypt.”

After his announcement that he will run for the 2018 presidential elections, the lawyer pointed out, Shafiq was taken from his home by the UAE authorities and flown on a private plane back to Cairo. She added that he wanted to leave the UAE for France, but was later told by the authorities that he would “go back to Cairo, because they can deport him only to his home country.”

“The officials informed him that he must leave the UAE without his daughters while they told his daughters that they are welcome to stay in the UAE,” Hussein explained.

Shafiq’s family told Reuters that they “know nothing about him since he left home yesterday.”

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“If he was deported he should have been able to go home by now, not just disappear,” the former Egyptian prime minister’s daughter, May, stressed, adding “We consider him kidnapped.”

The family and the lawyer stressed that they planned to file complaints with the prosecutor’s office around Shafiq’s whereabouts. UAE authorities confirmed he left the Emirates but gave no details.

In response, a source at the interior ministry said: “We do not know anything about Shafiq. We did not arrest him and we did not receive any requests from the prosecution to arrest him or bring him back.”

#SisiEra

Shafiq, appointed premier by Hosni Mubarak shortly before his overthrow in 2011, has been seen as a main challenger for the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, who is expected to dominate the 2018 vote despite not yet officially announcing his candidacy.

In 2012, Shafiq only just lost out to the 2012 presidency bid against the former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, despite widespread antipathy for Mubarak-era officials.

After the polls he was tried in absentia on corruption charges, as he fled he fled to the UAE. Last year, he was acquitted and was taken off airport watchlists.