Brit dad released from ‘inhuman’ Egyptian jail after arrest for ‘sex attack’ when he patted airport guard on back
A BRITISH dad has been freed from languishing behind bars in an "inhuman" Egyptian jail after he patted a male airport guard on the back.
Tony Camoccio, 51, was arrested over "sex attack" accusations at Hurghada International Airport on February 8 and spent five days in a ";squalid cell".
Campaign group Detained in Dubai said on Saturday that Mr Camoccio had now been released from Egyptian custody after paying about £1,000 in bail and other related costs.
Campaign chief executive Radha Stirling said: "The case has been dismissed for lack of evidence, and Tony will be flying home to the UK on the next available flight from Cairo.
"While the charges were clearly without merit, we have to emphasise that had British authorities and the international press not paid attention to this case, there is no reason to believe that Tony would be a free man today."
The case has been dismissed for lack of evidence, and Tony will be flying home to the UK on the next available flight from Cairo.
Radha Stirling
The London businessman and father-of-four had previously visited Egypt several times.
He was at the end of his holiday with his wife Joan and a large group of friends when the incident is said to have happened at an airport checkpoint.
His family claim he was given a standard pat down by a guard when he then patted the guard on the back.
The airport official is understood to have taken exception to the gesture and cops were called.
PETITION FOR RELEASE
More than 5,000 people had signed an online petition by Saturday calling for him to be released.
Mr Camoccio said: "I'm very excited to be heading home and can't wait to see all of my family and rest after the past week's events.
"I'm very thankful to everyone for their support, my friends and family, my lawyer Elezab Ali Elezab, John Kenny from the consulate and Radha Stirling who have done their best to get me home."
A statement on the petition website reads: "At customs in Hurghada airport on his outbound journey, he was at final checkpoint where he was, as a standard procedure for all outbound passengers, patted down by a security officer.
"Tony then gently patted the officers back, and is now facing serious accusations.
"He was held in a general population cell overnight where he remained in handcuffs petrified for his life as he did not know what he was supposedly being charged with or what he had done wrong."
Family claim he was kept in handcuffs for the first night and starved of food and water in his cell.
In January last year, British woman Laura Plummer, 34, was released after 15 "horrendous" months in Eqyptian jails.
Laura, jailed in Egypt for three years for having banned painkillers in her luggage, tucked into a fry up in Belgium before flying back to Heathrow after over a year.
Freed Laura told of her 14 months of hell in an Egyptian jail — saying: “My two-week holiday in the sun turned into a nightmare.”
The 34-year-old shop worker had planned to give them to her Egyptian husband Omar for his chronic back pain.
