Former presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq (Photo: Reuters)
Former Egyptian presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq's name has been put on Cairo International Airport's watch list, a judicial source told Reuters on Wednesday.
A number of legal complaints have recently been filed against Shafiq, a long-serving aviation minister under ousted president Hosni Mubarak, including one by leading Muslim Brotherhood member Mohamed El-Beltagi accusing Shafiq of slandering the Islamist group.
Another complaint, filed by El-Beltagi and Salafist preacher Safwat Hegazi, accuses Shafiq of concealing evidence regarding the murder of anti-regime protesters during last year's Tahrir Square uprising, during which Shafiq served as Mubarak's prime minister. That complaint was recently referred to the office of Egypt's justice minister.
According to Egyptian state news agency MENA, the decision to add Shafiq's name to the airport watch list was due mainly to accusations by former MP Essam Sultan that Shafiq had presided over theillegal sale of 40,000 acres of state land to Mubarak's sons at vastly reduced prices.
Immediately following his loss to Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi in Egypt's first post-Mubarak presidential election, Shafiq travelled to the United Arab Emirates. It was later revealed that the former presidential hopeful planned to remain in the UAE for "security reasons."
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