Security services would have allowed Abo Trika into Egypt

Cairo – 28 February 2017: Egyptian security services would not have prevented football player Mohamed Abo Trika from entering Egypt or participating in his father’s funeral, Youm7

reported

on Sunday, quoting Egypt’s Interior Ministry Spokesperson Tarek Ateya.

Ateya claimed security services do not have any instructions regarding Abo Trika. “If he had arrived to the airport, he would have entered like any other Egyptian citizen,” Ateya said in a phone-in with TV host Amr Adib on ON E.

The retired Egyptian football star was placed on the terror list in January for alleged links with the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

Fearing a travel ban or arrest, Abo Trika decided to stay in Qatar and not to return to Cairo for his father’s funeral on Sunday.

“Abo Trika's lawyer advised him not to attend the wake, because he could be stopped at the airport and his passport could be seized, as has been the case with other people on the list,” a close friend to Abo Trika told the state-owned news agency

Al-Ahram

.