CAIRO: Syrian authorities released on Monday Egyptian engineer Khaled El-Ghayesh who went missing two days ago in Homs.
El-Gayesh, 26, will head back to Beirut where he works as a computer engineer in a Swedish software company. He was visiting friends in Homs when he went missing two day ago.
"Khaled disappeared two days ago and we found out after contacting the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Egyptian embassy in Syria and its counterpart in Egypt that he was detained by security forces in Homs," Khaled’s uncle, Judge Assem El-Ghayesh, told Daily News Egypt.
"Khaled was asked to leave Homs’ land crossing on border with Lebanon and to come to Egypt, but he preferred to cross the border to Lebanon to go back to his work," said El-Ghayesh.
A protest was planned to take place in front of the Syrian embassy this Tuesday to demand El-Ghayesh’s release, but his family asked his supporters via a Facebook group named "Help Us Find Khaled El-Ghayesh" not to stage the protest, considering this "in the best interest of Khaled.”
"We wanted to give a chance for diplomatic efforts exerted by Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs Nabil Al-Araby and his deputy Mohamed Abdel-Hakam," said Assem El-Ghayesh.
"We did not want to put more pressure on them and we did not want the issue to take a political turn," he added.
Earlier this week, Syrian authorities also released Egyptian engineer Mohamed Radwan who was accused of espionage after taking pictures of anti-government protests in Syria.
