The release of Sami Anan : Expect the Unexpected

Sunday witnessed a ministerial reshuffle in Egypt with new faces joining the cabinet and old faces gone.
Yet that news did not catch the people’s attention as much as that news that came out of nowhere surprisingly.

 
Former Egyptian armed forces Chief of staff and former presidential hopeful Sami Anan was released on Sunday. He returned home in Cairo after two years in detention for breaking military laws in 2018.
His secretary Mostafa El-Shall tweeted that photo from Cairo following his release. Some say it is an old photo.

اللهم لك الحمد كما ينبغي لجلال وجهك وعظيم سلطانك ..حمدلله علي السلامة نورت بيتك يافندم pic.twitter.com/lebhrOtKjI

— Mustafa Elshall (@MElshll) December 22, 2019

In January 2018 following two days after declaring his intention to run for presidential elections only, former Lt. General Sami Anan was arrested and was accused of forgery and incitement against the army with the aim of “driving a wedge between the Egyptian armed forces and the Egyptian people”.

A year later in January 2019, a military court sentenced Anan to six years in prison for breaking military laws and forgery as well as to three years for incitement against the Egyptian army.
Since then, we have not heard much about Anan then came his release.

According to his official lawyer Nasser Amin’s statements to the media, his legal team has not yet received the legal reasoning behind his release to know whether he was pardoned or released for a medical reason.
Sami Anan was staying at Maadi Military Hospital since July 2018. He is currently fine according to his family.

Now Amin told Mada Masr an extra piece of information that is very interesting.
It turned out that the sentences of Anan have not been ratified by the “Military ruler” up till now to be in effect.

Former Lt. General Sami Anan 

Officially, the military ruler is the head of the State aka the president aka Abdel Fattah El-Sisi currently.

Hopefully, leading members of Sami Anan’s short-lived presidential campaign will be released too like Hazem Abdel Azim, Shady El-Ghazly Harb and Hazem Hosni who was arrested last September.

The three men are currently detained pending investigation on charges of spreading false news and joining illegal groups in various cases in the past two years.
Egypt’s top auditor Hisham Genina who was going to be Anan’s vice president is already serving his five years sentence in prison.

I do not have any explanation of why Anan was released and returned home.
I have read speculations online so far but in the end, they are speculations.
Some of those speculations are pretty wild if I may say. Some point out that the old faces of old generals are having a comeback.

Only time will tell us the real explanation of what has just happened.