Speculations on disappearance of Rida Hilal

Egyptian security sources said yesterday that the police fear that there is a crime behind the disappearance of the deputy editor-in-chief of the Egyptian al- Ahram paper Rida Hilal who was seen for the last time going to his apartment in Cairo on August 11.

One security source said "the disappearance of a man for this long period of time makes it very possible to that this is a crime." Other officials also said that they suspect there is a crime.

The prominent writer in the paper Salamah Ahmad Salamah said that Hilal wrote in many of his weekly articles that he thinks the American war on Iraq will be for the good of the people of Iraq, adding that Hilal's views were in contradiction with views of most Egyptians.

Salamah said that Hilal used to have good relations with colleagues. A western diplomat said that Hilal's vanishing is absolutely an unfamiliar incident in Egypt.