President Adly Mansour met on Sunday with officials from Nile University in an effort to settle a dispute over land between the university and Zewail City.
Among attendees were Abdel Aziz Higazy, the Nile University’s Board of Trustees chairman, Ibrahim Badran, member of the Board of Trustees, and Tarek Khalil, the president of the university.
The presidential spokesperson said Mansour agreed with Ahmed Zewail on an amicable settlement, whereby the administrative building would be allocated for the students to resume classes as of the beginning of next month, while the science building would be allocated to the researchers of Zewail University.
The government would then allocate an alternative land lot for the Zewail University to build a campus at its own expense, after which all current premises would be given to the Nile University.
The Administrative Court had ruled in 2012 that Zewail City of Science and Technology must return one of three buildings to Nile University.
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by former MP Hamdy al-Fakhrany against the higher education minister, the prime minister and the former head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces seeking to cancel the transfer of land and facilities to Zewail City.
Nile University students had been protesting the public prosecutor’s decision to hand the campus over to Nobel Laureate Ahmed Zewail. The demonstrators claimed that the Nile University administration had paid LE62 million for the right to use the campus for 99 years, and demanded that their campus remain in Zewail City and that they be allowed to use its laboratories and facilities.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
