The Russian Embassy has sent notes to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry with a request to provide full information on the two Russians held in prison. The Russian Ambassador to that country, Georgy Borisenko, said this on Tuesday.
"After the deportation of five Russian citizens from the country in December and January, two more of our citizens - residents of Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria - remain in detention centers," he explained, answering a question to TASS. - "Once again we sent notes on each of them to the Foreign Ministry, asking the authorities to provide us with information on what exactly they are accused of, and why they were not released together with others". According to the diplomat, the Russian side "will insist on the speedy release of these citizens."
In August 2018, Russian citizens who came to Egypt to study were detained in Cairo. Later, some of them were released, but the fate of the five natives of Ingushetia remained unknown for a long time. It has been ascertained that four of the five detainees were transferred to a prison in Cairo, but no charges were brought against them for a long time. Nothing was known about a fifth resident of Ingushetia, Hezir Dugiev, who was also allegedly detained by the authorities, and the Egyptian law-enforcement agencies did not confirm that he was under arrest. The sixth person involved in the extremism case was a Russian citizen of Kyrgyz origin, mother of five children. Later it became known about the arrest of the resident of Chechnya and Kabardino-Balkaria.
"The Egyptian authorities deported a resident of Chechnya on December 27 last year and on January 26 this year four more, including a woman and three residents of Ingushetia. - That leaves citizen Dzeitov from Ingushetia, who has been in prison since August 2018, and Shelov from Kabardino-Balkaria, who was arrested in April 2019."
According to Borisenko, all of the detainees were later formally charged with financial support for terrorist organizations as well as spreading extremist ideas via the Internet. "But what exactly this consisted in, we do not know and we still cannot get a coherent explanation and evidence of their guilt from Egyptian partners," the Ambassador stressed. - "In any case, the active efforts of Russian diplomacy have already brought results, and we hope that our Egyptian partners will try to understand the situation and meet us halfway [in the release of the two remaining Russians]".
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Sergey Fadeichev / TASS
Based on materials from TASS