US media reported in late December that five former aides of deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi remain in military detention. According to the GlobalPost report, the group includes former foreign advisor Essam El-Haddad and former expatriate affairs assistant Ayman Ali:
Ayman Aly
CAIRO, Egypt — Five and a half months after the military coup that unseated Egypt’s former President Mohamed Morsi, a handful of his closest aides remain in military detention, incarcerated in the headquarters of the country’s elite Republican Guard.
Egypt’s new interim government has yet to formally acknowledge the aides’ military detention, instead maintaining that they have remained in a formal prison throughout this period.
But relatives of the men speak of months of worry and confusion, during which they have gleaned only a trickle of information about their loved ones’ whereabouts through occasional phone calls from inside the Republican Guard headquarters. Each of those has lasted for little more than a minute.
‘They’re usually on speakerphone, or sometimes the first speaker is someone I don’t know,’ a relative of Khaled al-Qazzaz, one of the aides, told GlobalPost. ‘Then they hand [him]the phone and he tells me he is OK and asks how the kids are.’
The relative spoke on condition of anonymity, a sign of the fear that has gripped families of Muslim Brotherhood figures who previously held some of the highest offices in the country.
Under international law, the conditions of the aides’ detention constitute enforced disappearance, a fate that the UN General Assembly has repeatedly described as ‘an offense to human dignity’ and a ‘grave and flagrant violation’ of international human rights law.
Egypt’s interior ministry refused to comment on the allegations when approached by GlobalPost.
In August 2012,Essam El-Haddad was appointed as one of four Egyptian Presidential assistants with responsibility for foreign relations and international cooperation. Dr. Essam El-Haddad is a UK trained physician and long-time Muslim Brotherhood member who was appointed to the Guidance Bureau in February 2012, later becoming responsible for Foreign Relations on behalf of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party. Dr. El-Hadadd is also a member of the board and former chairman of Islamic Relief, an Islamic charity close to the Global Muslim Brotherhood and said by Israel to be controlled by Hamas in the Palestinian Territories. According to an online bio, Dr. El-Haddad also works also as a management consultant for the Dubai-based Skopos Company, described as “one of the first consulting companies in the Middle East and Africa to focus solely on Organizational Development.” According to a company brochure, Skopos is doing business as Skopos Consultingwhile the Louis Allen Worldwide website refers to the company as Skopos Middle East and says it has an equity interest in the company. In turn, Louis Allen Worldwide lists a number of prominent clients including Citibank, Pepsico, and Ford as well as least two Saudi companies.Essam El-Haddad is the father of Gehad El-Hadadd who is a Senior Adviser on Foreign Affairs to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood ‘s Freedom and Justice Party, a position he has held since May 2011. Essam El-Haddad chairs the Arabian Group For Development (AGD) which is where his son Gehad served as a consultant. The ADG lists among its most “significant and trusted clients ” Islamic Relief and Egyptian televangelist Amr Khaled’s Rightstart Foundation where Gehad worked as a marketing manager.
In June 2012, Ayman Ali (aka Ayman Aly) was appointed as one of 100 members of the new constituent assembly that was charged with drafting the country’s new constitution and described Identified as the “expatriates’ representative” and vice-president of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), the umbrella group representing the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe. Also in June 2012, Dr. Ali was appointed as the Presidential spokesperson to Egyptian President Morsi. In August 2012, Dr. Ali was selected as one of Morsi four Presidential advisers and described as Muslim Brotherhood member and a physician. In February 2013, an Egyptian newspaper identified Dr. Ali as a senior member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Guidance Bureau.
