Egyptian businessman and dissident Mohamed Ali faces the prospect of deportation to his country after a request made by the Egyptian authorities to Spain, his residence, to extradite him to Egypt for trial on charges related to tax evasion and money laundering.
A report in The New York Times reported that Mohamed Ali, the artist and contractor who had circulated online videos with strong protests against the Egyptian regime, was brought before a Spanish judge in a preliminary video hearing on July 9 where the court granted him 45 days for submitting his case and the reasons why he should not be deported to his country.
The newspaper pointed out that Mohamed Ali rejected the charges against him in an email, and considered them a convincing attempt to punish him for his anti-regime activities.
Muhammad Ali had exposed corruption incidents involving Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and a number of army leaders, and he called on the Egyptian people more than once to break out in mass demonstrations in Egypt's streets to bring down the regime.
Stalking and quantization policy
The newspaper considered that the request to extradite Mohamed Ali, which was submitted by the Egyptian authorities to Spain, comes as part of its efforts to use legal tools and other available means to silence the main opponents of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi abroad who are outside the grip of his security services.
She pointed out that since 2013 the Egyptian authorities have submitted many requests for extradition and arrest warrants to European and Asian countries to return the symbols of the opposition in them to Egypt, and most of these attempts were unsuccessful, but they led to the arrest of some of these personalities and the freezing of their accounts in banks in some countries such as Albania Ukraine and India during their fight against deportation.
An Egyptian court had sentenced Muhammad Ali in absentia to five years in prison in February 2019, and ordered him to pay $ 250,000 in arrears of taxes.
According to the newspaper report, the file of a request for extradition of Muhammad Ali submitted by Egypt to the Spanish judiciary, consisting of 20 pages, includes many of these accusations, and alleges that he concluded real estate deals in 2006 "without announcing a portion of his sales" and demands Spain to return him to Egypt for trial for allegedly washing Money and tax evasion.
The newspaper reported a statement to Muhammad Ali, which denied the accusations, and said, "I left Egypt two years ago and no one stopped me. If I had been fraudulent, why did they allow me to leave the country?", And he expressed the hope that the Spanish judiciary would stand in its side against the Egyptian authorities, Because Spain is a just country that defends human rights.
The New York Times indicated that Egypt and Spain do not have an extradition treaty between them, and therefore the decision on the extradition request is due to the decision of the judge who is examining the file.