Egypt convert’s legal limbo finally brings him 'back to Islam’

Yet the man who dared to ‘officially’ leave Islam could not walk free for weeks – until now. And he has publicly blessed Muhammad as "the Chief-most among Allah’s creation" on a YouTube video, in which he also spells out the Shahada, the Islamic proclamation of allegiance.

Hegazy broke new ground in 2007 as the first Egyptian to openly seek a change from Muslim to Christian on his ID card. He took a new ‘Christian’ name, Bishoy Armeya, but his government ID card from 2010 still showed his original ‘birth’ name.

"It is most unfortunate that, just as I feared, my client has not been allowed to walk free," said Ghobrial to World Watch Monitor, in the middle of trying to effect a release order that should have normally taken a day, but was still dragging on for much longer – with no hope in sight.

In an atmosphere of misinformation, orchestrated by the police, the prosecution and the prison authorities, the only source of reliable information about his client came from messages by fellow detainees leaked to their visiting families, and in turn to the lawyer.

With nothing having happened for three days, the lawyer decided to meet the chief warden of Tora Prison, where Hegazy had been held intermittently since 2013. "I went early in the morning of 29 June to know why my client was not released, despite the judicial order. The warden told me he received no court order. ‘Go to the court and check,’ he said."

At the court, the lawyer was told the order had indeed been dispatched. "Back at the prison, I was told the least they would accept – in absence of a court order – was an order by the prosecution office, thus sending me back to the court a second time [a distance of about 30 kilometres each way]."

Eventually, Ghobrial managed to get the prosecution order. "It was then that the warden refused to let Hegazy go. He said he could not release him in the absence of an ID or a birth certificate to identify the inmate scheduled for release."

The lawyer protested that it was on the grounds of Hegazy’s established identity that he was kept in prison for so long. But Ghobrial was given no satisfactory answer.

Now Ghobrial had to produce a copy of Hegazy’s birth certificate. To do that, the lawyer had to obtain a new Power of Attorney, including a specific phrase to allow him to have a birth certificate issued on behalf of his client.

"The registry clerk resisted giving me the document with the specific wording," Ghobrial said, believing the "collective intransigence had to do with my client’s disavowal of Islam" at the time.

After haggling, Ghobrial managed to get the paper and thereafter the birth certificate. The warden released Hegazy, but only to the custody of a downtown Cairo police station.

While his client was in the holding cell of al-Khalifa Police Station, Ghobrial was going through the motions to carry out the bail order.

Now the al-Khalifa police officers insisted Hegazy must first be dispatched to Port Said, a city 200km east. They said it was the "natural" next step, since the birth certificate indicated the city as the client’s birthplace.

Aware of the toll the journey could take on his already exhausted client, with conditions in the transfer van "arguably well below human", Ghobrial tried instead to have Hegazy moved to Ain Shams Police Station, in an area well within the boundaries of Cairo, "as his passport was issued from Ain Shams".

"Upon this, the officers at al-Khalifa police station said he would be moved to Ain Shams Police Station instead."

Yet a word from the inside to the lawyer revealed that the police, contrary to their assurances, were about to move Hegazy south to Minya (260km away), while keeping Ghobrial in the dark.

"When confronted, the police said they were acting upon an urgent notice from the State Security, who wanted Hegazy in Minya". The State Security is the body of agents renamed "National Security", empowered to halt release of individuals considered of "particular concern".

Further paperwork had to be done in Minya to confirm the original release order. Hegazy was then brought back to Cairo’s al-Khalifa station before he could be moved to the police custody in Ain Shams upon his lawyer’s request.

"By this time, we’re already into the small hours of Monday 4 July, and I’ve lost touch of my client’s whereabouts," Ghobrial told World Watch Monitor a month ago.

Fearing his client could already be in Ain Shams but "hidden" from him by the police there, Ghobrial tried the help of a parliament member.

But is it at all imaginable that the police could hide someone in their custody from his lawyer? "Everything is possible," replied Ghobrial.

After a search, Ghobrial learnt his client was remanded in al-Salam police station, an hour’s drive away from Cairo’s Ain Shams police station.

"When I went [to al-Salam], they told me the person I was looking for was not in their custody."

Back at al-Khalifa, the police told him his client was now in Ain Shams. At Ain Shams, the man who had defied Islam’s apostasy law was again nowhere to be found.