CAIRO: Authorities have promised a Google, Inc. executive missing since the first day of demonstrations in Egypt will be released on Monday, said Egyptian telecom tycoon Naguib Sawiris. Sawiris told a satellite television channel he owns that he had asked for Wael Ghonim's release during talks with Vice President Omar Suleiman on Sunday, alongside opposition groups, to try to end the country's political turmoil. It was not immediately clear who might be holding Ghonim, Google's head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa. The company said Ghonim not been seen since January 27. Sawiris said he had been promised Ghomin would be released at 4p.m. Cairo time, said a spokeswoman for Orascom Telecom, of which Sawiris is chairman, confirming his comments to the television station. Google began a public search for Ghonim last week, giving out a telephone number for information about him. Twitter messages last week from an account with the user name Wael Ghonim criticized the Egyptian government and showed solidarity with protesters rallying against President Hosni Mubarak. Google launched a service for Egypt to allow people to dial a telephone number and leave a voice mail which would then be sent on Twitter and could be heard on telephones to try to work around Internet restrictions imposed by the government when the protests gathered pace. Ghonim was feared to be among the 1,275 activists and demonstrators detained since the start of the protests on Jan. 25, according to human rights workers and political activists. However, since he disappeared there has been no information about his whereabouts. For the past year, Ghonim has been a volunteer for Mohamed ElBaradei's political campaign seeking political change and more democracy in Egypt. Political activists affiliated with the protest movement have been targeted in sweeping arrests conducted by Egypt's state security since the protest movement began. Egypt`s newly appointed Prime Minister confirmed this information during an interview on state media saying that he guarantees his release on Monday 7th of Feb at 4 pm. BM
