CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian public prosecutors ordered the detention of a man suspected of being involved in an alleged gang rape at a luxury Cairo hotel in 2014 for four days pending investigation, they said in a statement on Thursday.
The man, who is also a suspect in other similar cases, was arrested by police on Wednesday as he tried to flee abroad like seven other suspects in the case, which has been the focus of an online campaign against sexual assault in Egypt, they said.
The seven suspects fled the country between July 27 and July 29 after claims against them started to circulate on the internet, the public prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday.
Another suspect in the case is still at large in Egypt, and prosecutors were taking international measures to pursue the men who left the country, the office added.
Anger at the initial inaction over the alleged 2014 incident at Cairo’s Fairmont Hotel helped fuel a campaign against harassment and assault in which hundreds of women have shared testimonies online.
(Reporting by Haithem Ahmed; Writing by Mahmoud Mourad; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
