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Abdul Ghafoor Mahboob, a U.S. citizen, is safe at home in Culver City after a week-long ordeal of detention courtesy of the Egyptian government. Abdul had spent 7 months in Egypt studying Arabic. On his way home, he was arrested and blindfolded at the airport. He was interrogated and held for a period of 6 days until his release on Thursday. U.S. and Egyptian officials are silent on the reasons for his arrest.
A press release from the Council on American-Islamic Relations thanks Democrats Jane Harman and Dianne Feinstein for assisting to secure Mahboob's release, but the U.S. government has made no statements about this subject thus far. CAIR is an Islamic civil liberties organization. According to the San Jose Mercury News, Mahboob says he was beaten and that he recieved no explanation for why he was arrested or jailed. LAist wonders whether we'll see either Egypt or our own government shed some light on the causes for this incident.
