Egypt seeks arrest of 9 in hotel rape case

A view of the five-star Fairmont Nile City hotel, where an alleged sexual assault took place in 2014, in the Egyptian capital Cairo. (File/AFP)

• A UN Women found that 99 percent of women in Egypt had at some point in their lives been sexually harassed
• The rape allegedly took place six years ago at a luxury Cairo hotel but the allegations only emerged online in July

CAIRO: Egypt’s public prosecution on Wednesday said it was seeking to arrest nine suspects accused of gang-raping a woman, including seven who are on the run abroad.
The rape allegedly took place six years ago at a luxury Cairo hotel but the allegations only emerged online in July.
“The public prosecution is taking legal steps to arrest the fugitives who are accused of assaulting a young woman at the Fairmont Nile City Hotel in 2014,” a statement said.
The police informed the prosecution that “seven of the accused who face an arrest warrant have flown out of the country,” the statement said.
The prosecution said it was also trying to track down two other suspects in the case, one of whom had allegedly been “accused in a similar (rape) case.”
It did not identify the suspects.
A statement on Monday had said that the suspects were on an airport watch-list.
According to social media accounts up to six men had drugged and raped the woman.
The reports were widely shared, including by Assault Police, an Instagram account with more than 180,000 followers which is dedicated to pushing for justice for rape and sexual assault survivors.
Names and pictures of the accused, who hail from wealthy families, have circulated online, but AFP has been unable to verify their authenticity.
The prosecution had launched a probe in early August after receiving a letter from a national women’s association, which included a complaint from a young woman who claimed she had been gang-raped at the Fairmont in 2014.
The Fairmont Hotel has said it had conducted an internal investigation but found “that at no time were any reports of the incident filed to the hotel, nor to the hotel’s tourism police.”
Egyptian women often face threats of retaliation for exposing sexual misconduct.
The latest accusations come amid a resurgence in the #Metoo movement which seeks to hold sexual predators in the deeply conservative country accountable for their actions.
A 2013 study by UN Women found that 99 percent of women in Egypt had at some point in their lives been sexually harassed, either verbally or physically.