UAE deports Egyptian presidential hopeful after blocking his exit from country
The United Arab Emirates has deported a former Egyptian premier after he announced his intention to run in Egypt's upcoming presidential election.
According to a Cairo airport official, Ahmed Shafiq arrived in the country late on Saturday and then left for an undisclosed location.
"They took him from the house and put him on a private plane. They said he would go back to Cairo, because they can deport him only to his home country," said one of Shafiq's aides.
The latest incident happened just a few days after Shafiq announced that the UAE was stopping him from leaving the country, after he told Reuters that he wanted to take part in the 2018 presidential election against incumbent President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
Shafiq had been living in the UAE after he fled Egypt following his loss to Mohamed Morsi in the closely contested 2012 election.
After arriving in the UAE, Egypt put him on trial in absentia finding him guilty of corruption charges, but later acquitted him.
Shafiq served as prime minister for just over a month during the 2011 uprising that resulted in the ouster of at long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak.
He is seen as the only challenger to Sisi with even a slight chance of winning a large number of votes in the upcoming elections.
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