CAIRO: Sohair Abdou Asaad, who had converted from Christianity to Islam and then back to Christianity, was arrested on Monday for allegedly forging her national identity card. She was released on Tuesday upon the orders by the Prosecutor General, who also ordered the launch of an investigation into the alleged forgery of the official documents of Asaad s children. The 46-year-old Asaad was accused of changing her name on her national identification card from Sohair Mohamed Mostafa, the name she had adopted as a Muslim, to a Christian name. On Aug. 10, 1995, Asaad had converted to Islam and changed her name to Sohair Mohamed Mostafa. Six years later, she converted back to Christianity and was issued an official document from the Coptic Patriarchate verifying her return to her original faith. In 2004, she issued a computerized national identification card stating both her Christian name and faith. Between 1995 and 2001, Asaad was temporarily separated from her Christian husband who had custody of their children. However, when Asaad's children proceeded to issue their national identity cards at the legal age of 16, they discovered that they were registered to a Muslim father named Hussein El-Sayed. According to official databases, Rifka, Asaad's older daughter, allegedly converted to Islam in 1997 while her brother Ramy converted in 1995 at the age of six. Last February, Peter El-Naggar, the family's lawyer, filed a case to the Prosecutor General accusing the Minister of Interior and the head of the authority of civil affairs of fraudulently registering the children under a false name, which is not that of their Christian father. He also demanded that Rifka and Ramy's names be corrected. El-Naggar told Daily News Egypt that the Al-Salam prosecution office released Asaad after confirming the validity of the information on her national ID.
