One of the great mysteries of the Mubarak era in Egypt was the disappearance, in August 2003, of journalist Reda Helal. Helal was not typical of the country's opposition journalists. He was a senior staff member at the semi-oficial al-Ahram newspaper and held generally pro-American views.

His disappearance was reported in some detail at the time by al-Ahram Weekly, and later by Joel Campagna of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Al-Ahram's account says:

Hilal was last seen by his colleagues leaving the al-Ahram building at about 2pm. He was driven to his downtown flat in a company car. Upon his arrival, Hilal asked the house attendant to get him some juice from a nearby vendor. He had also apparently ordered a kebab meal from a nearby restaurant. But when the delivery man and the attendant arrived with his orders, a lock had been placed on Hilal's apartment's front door.

The next day, Hilal's brother opened the flat to find everything in place. The one possibly anomalous sign was that the windows had been left wide open.

Although Egyptian police carried out a fairly thorough investigation, the general consensus was that Helal (or Hilal) had been abducted by the regime because of something he said or knew about Gamal Mubarak.

While many people assumed that he had been killed, there have been persistent claims that he is actually still alive – and being held in jail under a different name. Those reports have still not been confirmed but with the fall of the Mubarak regime there is now some prospect of clearing up the mystery.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 28 Feb 2011.