President of Egypt apologises to Galloway

[cal04]

MP George Galloway received an apology from the President of Egypt after being held at Cairo airport for more than 12 hours, his Respect party said. The politician was detained on Friday night without food and water and only released yesterday when an anti-war event he was due to attend had ended, a spokesman for his party said.

The Bethnal Green and Bow MP was visited by Dr Mustafa el-Feki, an Egyptian member of parliament and chairman of the foreign relations committee, who conveyed the president's personal apologies. Mr Galloway said: "The president also apologised on behalf of the Egyptian people.

"He said that I was a freedom fighter and friend of the Arabs. It was a most gracious apology which I accept wholeheartedly. I consider the matter now closed." The Respect party has described their MP as an "outspoken critic of President Hosni Mubarak's dictatorship in Egypt". When security officials first held Mr Galloway they said his name was on a list of people prohibited from entering Egypt "for political reasons".

He was invited to the Middle East by the Arab Union of Lawyers and was due to take part in a mock 'trial' of George Bush and Tony Blair. Mr Galloway visited Egypt in 1999 as part of a North African and European tour to highlight the plight of Iraqis under the sanctions imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. He is due to return home later on Sunday.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-5595695,00.html?gusrc=ticker-103704

[Benbow]

1. Galloway comes up smelling of roses again

The faces of his detractors must be a sickly shade of green today. I am not his greatest fan but he is a sort of Houdini.

[yurbud]

2. your subject line made it seem like BUSH apologized