Egypt: Arrests ordered in 2014 hotel gang rape
Video emerges of incident in which victim was drugged, repeatedly raped and degraded
Dubai: Egypt’s Public Prosecution has issued an arrest order and travel ban for suspects involved in the alleged gang rape of an 18-year-old woman at the Fairmont Nile City hotel in 2014.
The decision follows an investigation into the incident on the Prosecutor-General’s orders.
The investigation was opened earlier in August after prosecutors received a file from the National Council for Women accompanied by a complaint from the young woman.
The file also consisted of several testimonies about the alleged crime, according to a statement from the Public Prosecution. The Prosecutor General examined the submitted papers and verified the results of the investigation.
Several women had filed legal complaints in relation to the alleged gang rape and other related sexual crimes allegedly carried out by the same perpetrators.
Broadly known on social media platforms as the ‘Fairmont Incident’ and the ‘Fairmont Crime’, the alleged gang rape came to light after six years when Ahmed Bassam Zaki, the alleged serial rapist and harasser, was arrested after being accused of attacks on dozens of women.
According to local media, sources confirmed the presence of the alleged rapists at Fairmont hotel on February 21, 2014. Sources said the victim was drugged, repeatedly raped, and degraded by the men. They revealed that a video recording the rape was handed over to lawyers who filed legal complaints on August 3.
The video connects that at least two men allegedly involved in the Fairmont crime are also involved in the rape of another young woman, who was unconscious and unaware she had been raped.