US awaits answers from Egypt on arrest of embassy staffer

The U.S. on Thursday said it has not been provided any official answers from Egyptian authorities as to why a locally-employed staff member at the U.S. embassy in Cairo was arrested on January 25.According to Egyptian media reports, Ahmed Alaiba, an Egyptian citizen, has been "rioting" at pro-Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations, and was thus "communicating with an outlawed group." "To our knowledge, no charges have been filed against him, although he does remain in prison," said State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf."What we said to the government of Egypt is that they need to tell us, and more importantly, make public, right -- not through anonymous sources, but make public very clearly why he was arrested and is being held." Alaiba does not have diplomatic immunity. Harf explained, however, that in his role at the embassy, he connects U.S. diplomats with "political actors" on the ground that may or may not include the Muslim Brotherhood."He is a member of our political section at the embassy, performed a number of duties and does what locally-employed staff do for political sections, sort of, in embassies all over the world -- Help us interpret political developments on the ground and connect American diplomats to a wide variety of political actors so we can inform our policy decisions based on those discussions," she stated. The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Western diplomats have been meeting with members of the Brotherhood for decades, but ever since it was classified as a terrorist organization by the military government late last year, there is a fear of retribution. "Setting aside his specific case, we have been concerned about the political climate in Egypt," noted Harf."We've been concerned about Egyptians of different parties being able to peacefully demonstrate and express their political views. "We've been concerned about the inclusiveness of the process and very clearly said that it needs to be inclusive going forward,"she added.