Canadians cleared to leave Egypt

(Updated) 

Two Canadians recently released from an Egyptian jail have been cleared to leave the country. Egyptian officials have agreed to let the pair go, after they were stopped from boarding a plane to Germany earlier this week.

John Greyson and Tarek Loubani are now free to leave Egypt, where they were held in jail for seven weeks, and they are reportedly boarding a flight to Toronto Friday.

Greyson and Loubani are planning to fly to Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, and are expected to make a public statement on their return to Canada this weekend.

The two men were arrested on August 16th, but were never charged with any crimes. After 7 weeks in Cairo’s notorious Tora prison, they were released last weekend.

Greyson, a Toronto filmmaker, and Loubani, a London, Ont. physician, were arrested after they stopped to help the injured at a violent protest in Cairo. The men said they were just passing through Egypt on their way to Gaza, but were accused of participating in the protest alongside members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Towards the end of their detention, the men described awful conditions in the Tora prison, saying at one point they were forced to share a jail cell with dozens of others, and sleep with cockroaches on a concrete floor.

After their release, Greyson and Loubani attempted to board a flight to Frankfurt, but were told that their names were on a no-fly list.

Greyson’s sister, Cecilia Greyson, blamed the holdup on slow-moving Egyptian bureaucracy. Greyson and Loubani appeared in a video posted to YouTube by Cecilia on Wednesday. In their message, the men thanked their families and supporters.

They’ve been staying at an undisclosed location in Cairo, awaiting their removal from the no-fly list.