Lawyer Ziad al-Uleimi was walking to his car in the Cairo residential suburb of Maadi in the early hours of June 25 when he was abducted. Witnesses say the former member of parliament was taken by National Security officers. Uleimi resurfaced hours later at the State Security offices, where he had been detained pending an investigation.
Uleimi was a founding member of both the liberal Social Democratic Party and the January 25 Youth Revolutionary Coalition, which negotiated the way forward for Egypt with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces during and after the 2011 uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak. Now he faces charges of "helping a terrorist organization further its interests" and "spreading false news," according to independent newspaper Mada Masr. Prosecutors ordered on June 26 that Uleimi be detained for 15 days after he was questioned about his political affiliations and his plans to form a new coalition.
