A photo for Ali Lawad from his personal Facebook account. That photo was uploaded to his account on 5 December 2015 (Photo: Facebook)
Cairo prosecution opened an investigation on Monday into the disappearance of an assistant auditor working with Egypt's state financial watchdog, Central Auditing Agency (CAA), after he was reported missing for nearly 19 days.
According to a statement from the spokesperson for the CAA Osama Al-Maraghi, the head of the CAA Hisham Geneina reported the disappearance of assistant auditor Ali Lawad to the Prosecutor General on Monday.
The CAA spokesperson added that the last time Lawad was seen was on Thursday, 10 December 2015, when he left his house heading to work with a report on the ministry of religious endowment.
Others say he was heading to the religious endowment ministry itself.
The family of the missing assistant auditor says that he was not involved in any kind of political activities.
Lawad’s colleagues have launched a Twitter hashtag "Where_is_Lawad?" in Arabic to obtain information on his whereabouts.
The incident comes as human rights activists in Egypt raise concerns about the increase in forcible disappearances of activists and protesters for political reasons.
The ministry of interior denies any involvement in forcible disappearances.
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