Canadians freed in Egypt still face travel ban

Monday 07-10-2013 01:29 PM
Canadians freed in Egypt still face travel ban

Policemen and people walk in front of the main gate of Tora prison, where former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his former Interior Minister Habib al-Adli are held at, in the outskirts of Cairo June 4, 2012. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

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CAIRO, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Two Canadians freed at the weekend after being held in Egypt for more than six weeks without charge are still barred from flying home, their lawyer said on Monday.

"When the men went to the airport they found there was a travel ban with their names on it and so they couldn't travel and came back to Cairo," Marwa Farouk, the lawyer representing John Greyson and Tarek Loubani, told Reuters.

"I am appealing to the prosecutor general to lift the travel ban," said Farouk, who had said the previous day that the Canadians were flying to Toronto after their release.

She said they were not in police custody, and were awaiting a court order to lift the ban.

Greyson and Loubani were arrested after going to see street demonstrations on Aug. 16, two days after security forces killed hundreds of supporters of toppled Islamist President Mohamed Mursi during a crackdown on protest camps set up in Cairo.

The Canadians were arrested at a checkpoint, then searched and beaten, they said. They were then taken to Cairo's Tora prison, where members of Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood are held.

More violence erupted in Egypt on Sunday, when 53 people were killed and 271 wounded during Brotherhood protests against the army's overthrow of Mursi on July 3.

The two Canadians had said they were in Cairo in August on their way to the Gaza Strip, where Loubani had been due to teach a medical course while Greyson made a documentary about him.

Egypt's army-backed authorities released the pair on Sunday, the Canadian foreign affairs department said.

They had ended a hunger strike on Thursday that they had begun on Sept. 16 in protest against their detention. (Reporting by Hadeel Al-Shalchi, writing by Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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