We Record human rights platform said the Egyptian authorities arrested the Egyptian activist Hossam Sallam, on Thursday, after a passenger flight he was boarding landed surprisingly in Luxor.

Sallam was destining Istanbul from Khartoum after the Sudanese authorities stopped him at Khartoum Airport before allowing him to continue his travel.

Badr Airlines said in a statement the captain of the flight was alarmed with smoking in the goods cabinet, which was discovered later to be false. According to passengers’ testimonies collected by We Record, no alarms was heard before the alleged obligatory landing and when passengers got out into Luxor Airport, security members inspected the papers of the Egyptian passengers and arrested Sallam, who lost contact since then.

Commentators accused the airlines of collusion with the Egyptian authorities, but she replied that the airplane was indeed sent for maintenance in Europe to readjust the alarm system and the company sent another airplane to carry the passengers what engaged the Egyptian authorities in travel proceedings according to aviation regulations.

Sallam is an Egyptian engineer, who was sentenced by a military court in March 2020 to life imprisonment on the attempted assassination of attorney general Zakria Abdel Aziz. Sallam was also previously sentenced to imprisonment in 2015.

We Record denounced the incident and held the Egyptian police responsible of Sallam’s safety. In a report titled “The Trap”, the Arab Network for Human Rights Information had previously reported repeated targeting of Egyptian travellers by authorities in the Egyptian airports over political issues.