Fiancée of Egyptian Christian convert facing execution urges US, Netherlands to intervene
The Australian-Egyptian fiancée of a man who left Islam for Christianity has launched an appeal to the Netherlands and the United States to save him from execution in Egypt.
Sophia, who asked The Jerusalem Post to withhold her surname, told the newspaper she hopes the Dutch government will consider trading her fiancé, Said Mansour Rezk Abdelrazek, for Ahmed Nasser, a man Egypt has pressed hard to get freed.
Dutch authorities arrested Nasser on suspicion of threatening and intimidating people at gatherings and protests in 2025 and earlier this year while working for a foreign state.
She called the proposed trade a “humanitarian favor” and said the couple has no plans to settle in the Netherlands or use Dutch public money.
She also urged Washington to tie its roughly $1.5 billion in yearly aid to Egypt to Abdelrazek’s release and better treatment of religious minorities.
Prosecutors want the “maximum penalty,” meaning death or a 25-year prison term, Abdelrazek’s lawyer, Said Fayez, said in a statement after a Nov. 3 hearing.
The defense is scheduled to present its arguments on Dec. 8.
Coptic Solidarity, a Washington-based group campaigning for Egypt’s Copts and other religious minorities, said Abdelrazek is charged with membership of an outlawed terrorist group, contempt for Islam, spreading false information and stirring public disorder. The terrorism charge carries a possible death sentence.
Fayez says the group that Abdelrazek is purported to be a member of doesn't exist and that, in reality, his client is on trial for refusing to “renounce Jesus.”
Sophia said Egyptian authorities have not named the group. She alleged that 180 or more other Christians are held on similar charges.
Police arrested Abdelrazek in Cairo’s Matariya neighborhood on July 15, 2025, after he sought to have his official identity papers record his Christian faith, according to a letter from the International Religious Freedom Roundtable published by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies.
Addressed to Tony Burke, Australia’s minister for home affairs and minister for immigration and citizenship, the letter asks the Australian government to give him humanitarian or protection status, lobby Egypt for his release and take the case to the United Nations.
Australia’s Department of Home Affairs confirmed receipt of his visa application on May 8, 2024, and has done nothing substantive since, the letter states.
Signatories include Christian Solidarity International, Freedom House and Sam Brownback, a former U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.
The couple had planned to wed at the Australian Embassy in early April 2025, but put it off when she fell ill.
He is held in 10th of Ramadan Prison. Sophia said their lawyer has visited once, in January, and family members are barred from visiting or sending food or clothing. She pays roughly 11,000 Egyptian pounds (about $220) monthly to smuggle those items in.
According to the letter, he has gone without medication and his lawyers cannot see the case files. His legal team has said he has a history of heart problems and a coronary stent.
Raised in a Muslim family, Abdelrazek came to Christianity after reading the Sermon on the Mount in a Bible lying open in a neighbor’s store. Sophia said a Protestant Baptist church baptized him around 2017. The letter dates his conversion to 2016.
Once he went public with his faith, his mother informed state security, and his then-wife left with their son, Sophia said.
A 2023 arrest over videos he allegedly posted of the Quran being desecrated led to a year in prison. He later reached Russia, where he applied for asylum and joined the Russian Orthodox Church.
Russian authorities jailed Abdelrazek, 30, for 11 months, stripped his refugee protection and deported him in 2024, according to Visegrad 24. He held U.N. refugee agency papers confirming he qualified for protection.
Back in Egypt, he was detained and tortured, Sophia said. His captors tried to remove his cross tattoo and had Muslim clerics visit him. “They had him crucified the whole time he was there,” she said, adding that he was tied to a wall.
He was later freed into his family’s custody on the understanding that he would return to Islam. When he refused, authorities ordered him to attend classes on Islam. His brother-in-law threw water on his face to wake him for prayers at around 5 a.m.
Sophia has reportedly received death threats online from Egyptian Islamists.
A Coptic Solidarity petition demanding his release has drawn more than 35,000 signatures.
Coptic Solidarity told The Jerusalem Post the trial was a “defining test for the future of religious freedom in Egypt,” warning a severe sentence could set a precedent for prosecuting other converts.
