Imprisoned translator Kholoud Saeed faces charges in new case after weeks-long disappearance from police station

Nearly a month after disappearing from a detention facility in Alexandria, imprisoned researcher and translator Kholoud Saeed reappeared before prosecutors on Monday only to be charged in a new case and issued a new 15-day detention order, according to a lawyer who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity.

Before the new 15-day detention order was issued by the Supreme State Security Prosecution, release orders had been issued from a different court for Saeed, who heads the translation department for publishing at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

Saeed was first arrested on April 21 and held for nearly seven months in remand detention on charges of joining a terrorist group and spreading false news in Case 588/2020. On December 13, the Cairo Criminal Court ordered her released after which she was transferred from prison to the Montazah First Police Station in Alexandria, Saeed's lawyer Mohamed Awad told Mada Masr at the time.

Yet Saeed disappeared from the police station two weeks later, according to Awad, who said that officials allowed him to see records showing that she had been transferred to the headquarters of the National Security Agency.

On December 30, Awad contacted the public prosecutor raising the alarm that Saeed had still not been released, while her mother later published a statement on her Facebook page calling on the interior minister to reveal her daughter’s whereabouts.

She finally appeared before the State Security Prosecution on Monday, according to a lawyer who was present at the session, and ordered held in remand detention in Case 1017/2020 on similar charges of “joining a terrorist group,” “publishing false news,” and “using the internet to spread false news.”

The new case effectively resets the two year period over which Saeed can legally be kept in remand detention, meaning that she can be held without trial until 2022 despite having spent six months in detention facilities already pending investigation into an earlier case. The practice, which is known in Arabic as tadweer or “rotation,” has become a frequent tactic used by authorities to keep political prisoners locked up without trial.

A September statement from six human rights groups condemned the frequency with which detainees are shifted into new cases and held in detention for over two years without trial.

The statement noted that lawyers Mohamed al-Baqer, Mahienour al-Massry and Amr Imam, journalists Esraa Abdel Fattah and Solafa Magdy and blogger Radwa Mohamed have all recently been added to new cases.