Egyptian Osama Hosni Zaghloul has yet to be officially charged after a two-year detention period at Hudson prison in the US state of New Jersey. Zaghloul is suspected of child molestation.
Zaghloul accepted a position from the US Naval Medical Research Unit (NAMRU) in 1994 and was granted citizenship shortly after, according to the mother of the accused, who pleaded for intercession by President Mubarak.
The brother of the accused says the family lost contact with Zaghloul before his detention. A phone call from the Egyptian foreign ministry to the US Attorney-General later revealed that Zaghloul had been imprisoned.
Zaghloul complained in frequent phone calls to his family that officials from the Egyptian consulate–a 15-minute drive from the prison–failed to pay him a visit or hire him a lawyer.
But the Hudson prison’s inmate affairs official, Marie Thomas, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that he had declined to speak to other inmates or Egyptian consulate officials.
According to a recent ruling, the Supreme Court is entitled to detain molestation suspects indefinitely if the accused is deemed a threat to society.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
