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On the lam in Egypt, with no sign of 'spring'
Article by: KEVIN DIAZ , Star Tribune Updated: April 1, 2011 - 10:40 PM A Minnesota woman's Egyptian husband could face military trial.
WASHINGTON - They call it the Arab Spring. But to Michelle Buchheit, a Shakopee woman facing a nightmare legal scenario in Egypt, it doesn't look like the old order is crumbling.
Buchheit, a life coach and consultant, got a distress call last week from her Egyptian husband, Hassan Hofny. He and his brother, Mohammed, she was told, were being falsely accused in a looting incident in the historic city of Luxor, his hometown.
"He sounded frightened and confused," she said. "And he still is."
Buchheit immediately flew to Egypt, where Mohammed Hofny faces a military court trial Sunday amid fresh protests calling into question the direction of a country struggling to recover from a 30-year dictatorship.
"The country has been left in midair with the military in charge," Buchheit, 49, said via a Skype call from an undisclosed location in Egypt, where she is hiding with her husband. "And they don't know how to run a country."
Buchheit and her husband say the accusation followed a veiled extortion attempt involving one of a dozen other men who have been implicated in the theft of ancient Egyptian artifacts, which are central to the nation's cultural patrimony.
"They think he has money since he's married to an American," Buchheit said of her husband. "If only they knew."
While Buchheit's story is difficult to confirm independently, a resident Egypt expert at the University of Minnesota says the case is typical of a "revolutionary situation where a lot of innocent people are being accused unjustly."
The expert, Egyptian native Ragui Assaad, added, "There has been a witch hunt and the military is trying to look very tough so as to restore what it calls 'order.' "
Egypt's military rulers have called for presidential elections in November in the wake of the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. But to Buchheit, her family's ordeal feels as if true democracy and rule of law will be a long time in coming to Egypt.
"I can't even begin to tell the story," she said.
She thought the U.S. Embassy in Cairo could help. But Hofny, 25, is not a U.S. citizen. A pending visa application to get him out of the country is on hold because of the Jan. 25 revolution. A criminal conviction would almost certainly end his hopes of ever emigrating to the United States to live with Buchheit, a tourist he met while working on a Nile cruise three years ago.
"They're destroying our future," said Hofny, who speaks fluent English.
Although Hofny says he has alibi witnesses who can prove he was nowhere near the scene of the crime, he believes he would be unlikely to see the light of day any time soon if he surrendered to the military authorities who run the country.
"When they don't have any evidence, and they don't have a case, they throw it to the army courts," said Hofny, the son of a retired police officer.
Under emergency decrees still in effect, Egypt remains a nation without a presumption of innocence, where suspects can be held indefinitely.
For now, the police only have Hofny's brother, a chemist, behind bars. If he is convicted by a military tribunal on Sunday, Buchheit fears the worst for Hofny and a neighbor who she says was also falsely implicated. All three are named in a 106-page police report on the case, which involves the theft of at least two antique busts taken from a Luxor warehouse. If the brother is convicted, the authorities will certainly come looking for Hofny next.
Hofny, who makes a living selling spa services at local resorts, says the unrest in Egypt has all but destroyed the tourism industry on which he's depended all his life. While he recognizes that Egypt needed reform under Mubarak, he believes the protesters in Tahrir Square forced things too fast.
"It's OK to change," he said. "But this is not right. What's going on in Egypt makes you confused. It's worse than before."
Amid the chaos of the revolution, Hofny believes he and his brother were fingered by three co-defendants who were under pressure from police to produce more suspects. He also believes they were beaten, a sign that the authorities were feeling pressure to solve either the crime or cover up one of their own doing.
The uncle of two of the three accused had recently asked Hofny for money. Hofny had rebuffed him. Now, he said, "everyone is telling a different story."
The result is a legal limbo with tentacles from Cairo to Minnesota.
Hofny and Buchheit have hired lawyers who are trying to move the case into the civil courts, where they would at least have appeal rights. They have already spent $3,000, and the fees could climb to $27,000, Buchheit said. If necessary, she says, she'll take out a loan against her mortgage in Shakopee.
"Anything can happen in Cairo," said Buchheit's mother, Roberta MacDonald, a former travel agent from Bloomington who has traveled the world, including Egypt, where she was on the Nile cruise that brought her daughter together with Hofny.
"Sometimes I think we Americans don't realize what we have," MacDonald said. "We have rights."
Kevin Diaz is a correspondent in the Star Tribune Washington Bureau.
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What does she wants to achieve with that article? Get some sympathy from readers???
Seriously she married this guy from Luxor (from Luxor lol!!!!) she knows nothing about and I am sure he did not marry her for her breathtaking looks imho....
Urghhhh that pic just makes me shudder. So she is 49 and he's a merely 25. Just simply DISGUSTING.
I have to ask again - where is the 'puke' button?????? Posts: 30135 | From: The owner of this website killed ES....... | Registered: Feb 2004
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I just want to know what lam means. Does it mean 1 in the morning or is it a lower case L, or an uppercase i, can't make it out till I copied it. Still confused.
I agree with TL though, 24 years age gap is way too small, she could do much better
-------------------- If you don't learn from your mistakes, there's no sense making them. Posts: 15090 | From: http://www.egyptalk.com/forum/ | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Cosmogirl: Ayish, it is on the LAM, as in on the RUN. Hotfooting
Well before I opened it there was me thinking it was something to do with lambs born in spring. It is lambing season right now in my defence!
Posts: 500 | From: United Arab Emirates | Registered: Jul 2008
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"On the lam" or "on the run" often refers to fugitives. Mencken's The American Language and The Thesaurus of American Slang proclaim that lam, lamister, and "on the lam" — all referring to a hasty departure — were common in thieves' slang before the turn of the twentieth century.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_lam
The internets are just chockablock with information In honor of lambing season.. thats what was for dinner last night! Mmmmm broiled chops!
Posts: 1071 | Registered: Aug 2005
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-------------------- If you don't learn from your mistakes, there's no sense making them. Posts: 15090 | From: http://www.egyptalk.com/forum/ | Registered: Jul 2004
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Mutton dressed as lamb as my mother would say.
-------------------- Jane Akshar UK Co-owner of www.flatsinluxor.co.uk Appartments and Tours in Luxor Posts: 2791 | From: www.flatsinluxor.co.uk, Luxor, Egypt | Registered: Jan 2003
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In honor of lambing season.. thats what was for dinner last night! Mmmmm broiled chops!
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