Murad Hanif, a 25 year old Penn State student facing multiple charges for rape and assault committed over the past six months, is either on the run or facing a major family crisis, according to the Collegian and Centre Daily Times. On August 11th, the day he was officially charged with rape, Hanif took off to Egypt to deal with, as he told his attorney, Karen Muir, “family problems”. Hanif is a man of many ports. A Penn Stater with addresses in State College and Philadelphia, he is neither an American citizen nor Egyptian. Muir claims that she is optimistic that Hanif will return to defend himself against these charges, but many are suspicious.

Lawyers in Pennsylvania are concerned not only about whether he will return to face his charges, but whether America has the right to have him extradited from Egypt, assuming that he is still there. The possibility of extradition has been raised, but the diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Egypt is fragile; the treaty that would allow Hanif’s deportation back to the United States is more than a hundred years old. The question for Cairo is whether this incident will be enough of a catalyst to rejuvenate relations with Washington in order to decide whether they are legally obligated to find Hanif and send him back to the scene of his alleged crimes.