Ibrahim
Metwally Hegazy
Egyptian human rights lawyer detained at Cairo airport in September 2017 while travelling to brief the UN on enforced disappearances. Held in pre-trial detention for over eight years through serial case-rotation, he has been on trial since June 2025.
- Country
- Egypt
- Role
- Lawyer
- Arrested
- 22 Oct 2019
- Sentence
- No verdict, held in pre-trial detention for 8+ years through serial case rotation.
- Status
- Detained (pretrial)
- Arrested
- 22 Oct 2019
- Sentence
- No verdict, held in pre-trial detention for 8+ years through serial case rotation.
- Judicial status
- On trial
- Name in Arabic
- إبراهيم عبد المنعم متولي حجازي
- Charges
- Joining and financing a terrorist group; spreading false news; "communicating with foreign entities to harm national security" (Penal Code arts. 86 bis, 102 bis; Anti-Terrorism Law 94/2015 arts. 12, 13). Rotated across Cases 900/2017, 1470/2019 and 786/2020.
The arrest, and what followed.
Background and work
Ibrahim Metwally Hegazy is a Cairo lawyer who turned to human rights work after his son Amr disappeared on 8 July 2013, during the Republican Guard events. He co-founded the Association of the Families of the Disappeared and worked with the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF), two of the only Egyptian organisations systematically documenting cases of enforced disappearance and assisting families in their search.
Arrest and detention
On 10 September 2017, he was stopped at Cairo International Airport on his way to Geneva, where he had been invited to address the 113th session of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. Officers from the National Security Agency took him into custody, held him incommunicado for two days, and reportedly tortured him. He was subsequently charged in connection with State Security Case 900/2017 and placed in pre-trial detention at the high-security Tora 2 prison.
Case rotation and trial
For seven years he was not tried. When prosecutors ordered his release in Case 900/2017 in October 2019, the order was not carried out: he disappeared for about 20 days at a National Security office in Kafr El Sheikh and was then added to Case 1470/2019. In August 2020, while release procedures in that case were under way, he was added to Case 786/2020. In September and October 2024 he was referred to trial in Cases 900/2017 and 1470/2019. His first trial began on 1 June 2025 and a second on 11 June, and the first hearing in Case 786/2020 was held on 22 September 2025. Hearings continue. He was held in Tora Maximum Security 2 until 2022 and since then in Badr 3 prison, where his family has asked for a transfer for urgent surgery without a response.
Current status as of 2026
Now about 61, he remains in detention in Badr 3, on trial in three cases, with serious untreated health problems. At the latest hearing found, on 24 August 2026, one case was adjourned to 28 October 2026. His case has become emblematic of the practice of "rotation", the indefinite holding of dissidents through serial recycling of identical charges.