Egypt President Mohammad Mursi’s children asked to attend hearing

Cairo: Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court’s State Commissioners Authority ordered on Thursday that President Mohammad Mursi’s son and daughter attend a hearing on a lawsuit demanding the revocation of their US citizenship.

The court’s decision comes as part of a lawsuit filed in 2012 by attorney Mohammad Salem following Mursi’s presidential election to force his two children, Shaimaa and Osama, to renounce their US citizenship, which they acquired at birth while their father was working as a professor at California State University in North Ridge between 1982-1985.

The state commissioners postponed the hearing until May 30 and issued a £400 (Dh211) fine on the head of Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs judicial department for delaying the document co-ordination process with the US State Department.

A similar lawsuit filed by lawyer Tareq Mahmoud in 2012 argued that their passport can be a means by which the US can conspire against Egypt.

Article 134 of Egypt’s constitution dictates that the president must be an Egyptian citizen, his/her parents must also be Egyptian and the incumbent cannot hold any other citizenship. The article also specifies that the president cannot be married to a non-Egyptian; however, there is nothing in the constitution regarding the nationality of the incumbent’s children.

In April 2012, presidential candidate Hazem Salah Abu Esmail was disqualified after it was discovered that his mother had an American passport – something he continues to deny. Controversy is starting to surround Mursi’s children after Omar Mursi, his son, obtained a job at the Egypt Airports and Air Navigation Holding Company, with rumours circulating that he was given a massive salary. Omar later turned the job down, announcing that his monthly salary would have only amounted to some LE900.

— Ayman Sharaf is a journalist based in Cairo.