CAIRO - The Egyptian community in Spain plan to organise a demonstration in Madrid to press the Spanish authorities to hand over to Cairo Mubarak's ally, Hussein Salem. The purpose of the protest, that will be held at the Spanish Ministry of Justice, is to retrieve huge sums of money that have been stolen from Egypt. Ibrahim Abul Rous, head of the Egyptian community in Spain and the initiative's co-ordinator there, will submit a request to organise the protest after a similar one was held outside the Spanish Foreign Ministry last month, Moataz Salah Eddin, who is responsible for the initiative, told the official MENA news agency. Meanwhile, lawyer Matthew Fortunato is collecting signatures from expatriate Egyptians after volunteering to file a suit in a Spanish court, seeking the extradition of Salem to Egypt together with the hundreds of billions he has stolen. A similar lawsuit has been filed by Spanish lawyer Javier Jose Garcia. In June, Salem was admitted to a Spanish hospital after being arrested on an international warrant for alleged corruption. Salem, a business tycoon, has been accused of squandering Egyptian public funds by selling gas to Israel below the market prices.
