In February the Egyptian Interior Minister Mahmoud Tawfik was filmed
disembarking from the same plane as the one seized in Zambia with the
registration number T7-WSS clearly visible on the tail [photo credit:
Saheeh Masr]
On 17 August, another independent Egyptian fact-checking website, Matsda2sh [“Don’t believe it”], acquired a copy of a Zambian court document revealing the identities of five of the six Egyptians who had been detained. They were :
Muhammad Abd al-Haq Muhammad Judeh: US State Department archives
show "Abdul-Haq" [AKA MAJOR MOHAMED ABDELHAK MOHAMED GOUDA] was
assistant military attaché at the Egyptian embassy in Washington from
2011 and 2012 at the same time as being a major in the Egyptian army. He
appeared in an Egyptian TV advertisement
for a cancer charity two years ago when a hospital wing was to be named
after a Special Forces SEAL Commander Colonel who had been killed in
Sinai. He reportedly retired around five years ago with the rank of
colonel.
Michael Adel Michel Botros: Botros’s passport states he is a goldsmith, but he has also been involved in producing a movie. UK Companies House register lists him as the owner of a firm called Amstone International Limited. The Amstone website
says Amstone is an Egyptian defence company with offices in the US,
UAE, Egypt, France, Greece, England and Poland. It also says Amstone is
an approved supplier to the Egyptian Ministry of Defence and claims to
provide a very wide array of advanced military services and hardware,
including aircraft, helicopters, drones and rocket and missile systems.
Speaking at the Egyptian arms fair Edex in 2021 an Amstone
representative said:
We are an Egyptian company with Egyptian capital. We have a
partnership with five international companies in the field of military
and military manufacturing, in the manufacture of anti-tank missiles and
attack drones. We keep pace with the vision of the political leadership
in implementing these projects in Egypt with Egyptian hands.
Matsda2sh also reported that Mr Botros was formerly Chairman of a Qatari company called Al Manara Holding. In April 2015 local and pan-Arab media
reported that Al Manara Holding signed a USD$6 billion contract to
build a luxury development project in Oman called “Oman Oasis”. At the
time this was billed as “the largest residential tourist resort in the
Sultanat”. However, in 2016 the Omani Minister of Tourism stated that the project was fictitious and did not really exist.
Mounir Shaker Gerges Awad aka "Al-Khawaja": A jewellery factory owner and gold trader, Mounir Shaker runs a firm called "Shaker Gold Factory Genius Gold" with branches in Zagazig and Cairo, as well as a shop at the Helnan Landmark Hotel in Cairo’s fashionable Fifth Settlement. On 7 August Mounir Shaker announced
the opening of a new gold shop in Port Fouad taking place on 18 August.
On 16 August, the day the plane was seized, his son announced the
opening had been postponed to August 25, without giving a reason.
Walid Rifaat Fahmy Boutros Abdel Sayed aka Walid Al-Rubai: Via an Al-Ahram obituary published in May 2017 Matsda2sh identified
Walid Rifaat Fahmy as a police lieutenant colonel with an uncle who was
a major general in the Ministry of Interior. He is now thought to be
working in the private security sector.
Yasser Mukhtar Abdul Ghafour Al-Shishtawi: Two
former Egyptian state security officers in exile identified Colonel Al-
Shashtawi as a former commander in the elite Thunderbolt Unit 777 and
they posted pictures of him online.
Unit 777 is Egypt’s military counter-terrorism unit and it actively
trains with Western special operations groups including the US Army's
Delta Force, US Navy's SEAL Team Six, and the French GIGN.
So far none of the foreigners in the case have formally been charged with any crime. Last Thursday a French law firm, Vey & Associés, who once represented Julian Assange, issued a statement complaining about their detention and contradicting some important details about the bust as decribed by Zambian authorities.
Speculation is now rife regarding the identity of the sixth Egyptian
national who has been detained. Given the prolonged secrecy, it is
widely believed he must be someone extremely important and opposition
media outlets are claiming he has connections to the President's son Mahmoud El Sisi, deputy head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate.
Another close Sisi ally who has been linked to the plane is Ibrahim Al Organi / Arjani. Last week Zambian and Egyptian independent media - separately, unofficially and without any confirmation - both named him as the sixth man. Arjani appeared in Egyptian state media last Wednesday however, so this theory has now been discredited.
Nevertheless, many links between Arjani and the Zambia plane have
been uncovered, showing that even though he is not the sixth man, he
used the plane in the past. In April, Arjani’s son posted a picture of him and his father standing in front of what appears to be the same plane. The plane was also photographed last year at Sharm El-Sheikh Airport, which is in South Sinai.
Born and raised in Sheikh Zuweid in North Sinai, Ibrahim Al Arjani is a wealthy businessman
and notorious warlord who heads the Tarabin Bedouin tribe in Sinai
which works closely with the intelligence services in Sinai and Gaza. In
recent months he has been allowed to play an increasingly prominent
diplomatic function. In Libya, in May he not only participated in bilateral security talks, he chaired some of the meetings. Another sign of his influence came last year when Arjani became the major sponsor of Egypt’s premier football club Al Ahly, a move denounced by the opposition as sportswashing.
According to Haaretz, Egypt is careful that all its reconstruction
work in Gaza is done through Arjani’s company – not by the Egyptian army
– even if the army is supervising the work. In 2021 Haaretz
reported: “Arjani, who owns some of the largest construction firms in
Egypt, takes his orders from Egyptian intelligence – and also a big cut
of Egypt's aid to Gaza, and from the movement of goods from Egypt into
Gaza, mostly those that pass through the Saladin checkpoint in Rafah.”
So far there has been no official comment from Sisi or any other high
level regime member about the Zambia gold plane, let alone any sign of
an investigation or anyone being held accountable.
But while the truth about what was going on remains unknown, top
security officials being detained by an African police service with
allegedly fake gold in a plane used frequently by the security services
is a heavy blow to the regime and it is likely to have far-reaching
consequences, especially given the acute economic crisis.
State media was obviously not ready for what happened. The Sinai Tribes Union published a hasty denial that neither it nor any Egyptian businessmen were involved in any smuggling. The tweet was deleted a short time later.
At least two other regime websites - Al-Masry Al-Youm and Cairo24 -
also took down their articles about the plane a few hours after they
were published.
The MENA news agency published a report asserting
that according to “an informed source” T7-WSS is a “private plane, and
it was subject to inspection and ensuring that it meets all safety and
security rules". This was promptly contradicted by the BBC which said that planes in transit in Cairo are not inspected.
Caught with its pants down, the regime’s anger and humiliation has
prompted it to revert to what it knows best: arresting journalists and
blaming the Muslim Brotherhood. Just like in the COVID crisis when the
regime turned on doctors, politicians, journalists and other prominent public figures, regime propagandists have attacked Matsda2sh and Sahih Masr as being “affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood”.
On 19 August Matsda2sh published an urgent press release
saying its platform had been subjected to a “coordinated attack”
leading to a “serious breach of security.” A day later two of its
journalists were detained in Cairo without charge, before being released
on Sunday. The investigation continues.