An Egyptian has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for over three months without legal representation or contact with Egyptian consular officials, his family told Al Manassa.
Nimer Farag Abdel Aziz, and Egyptian lawyer from Matrouh governorate was detained on Aug. 11 during a pilgrimage to Mecca, after an altercation with mosque security near the Kaaba's Black Stone, according to his brother, Mohamed Farag.
“We were performing Umrah together,” Mohamed told Al Manassa. “Security forces separated him from our group and led him to a nearby police station. They told us he’d be released the next morning once we brought his ID, since he was in ihram and carrying no papers.”
Ihram is the sacred state that Muslims enter when performing the pilgrimage to Mecca, known as Hajj or Umrah. Pilgrims wear simple white garments and are forbidden from carrying personal items such as stitched clothing, perfume, or even identification papers in some cases.
Nimer, however, was transferred to a general detention center the next day, where authorities conducted an interrogation without a lawyer or consular representative present, Mohamed said. “We hadn’t even informed the consulate yet. The same month, he was sentenced to two years from the first court session. We hired a Saudi lawyer to appeal, but he didn’t attend the hearing, so the verdict was upheld.”
Mohamed said the family submitted a complaint to the Saudi embassy in Cairo in October. “They gave us phone numbers that are always switched off. Since then, we’ve retained lawyers Amr Al-Khashab and Ali Ayoub to pursue legal remedies.”
Al-Khashab told Al Manassa that his client was “physically assaulted while performing Umrah with his family three months ago, then sentenced to two years in Al-Shumaisi prison in Jeddah.”
They lawyer said Nimer was interrogated without the presence of an Egyptian consular official—an apparent violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which grants foreign detainees the right to communicate with their consulate and obliges host states to inform consular officials immediately upon arrest.
“We’re currently coordinating with Saudi lawyers to submit a royal pardon request,” Al-Khashab said. “The speed of his sentencing was unusual. We’ve also filed a lawsuit urging the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to intervene immediately to protect its citizen and follow up on the case.”
The Vienna Convention mandates consular access for foreign nationals under detention, including timely notification of the arrest, consular visits, and legal assistance. Denial of these rights may constitute a breach of international law, requiring diplomatic action.
