Fiancée asks US to intervene as Egyptian Christian convert faces possible execution 

The fiancée of an Egyptian man who converted from Islam to Christianity wants the United States to help secure his release from prison. He could face the death penalty.

Sophia, an Australian-Egyptian woman who asked the Jerusalem Post to withhold her last name, said Egyptian authorities are punishing her fiancé for converting to Christianity.

She wants the United States to use its roughly $1.5 billion in annual aid to Egypt to pressure the country to free her fiancé and stop mistreating religious minorities. Neither she nor her fiancé is American.

Egypt has held Said Mansour Rezk Abdelrazek since July 2025. His lawyer, Said Fayez, said prosecutors sought the “maximum penalty” at a Nov. 3 hearing. Abdelrazek could face execution or 25 years in prison, the newspaper reported.

Coptic Solidarity also reported that prosecutors are seeking the maximum penalty. His lawyers will argue against the charges on Dec. 8.

Prosecutors accuse Abdelrazek of showing contempt for Islam and joining a banned terrorist group. They also accuse him of spreading false information and causing unrest.

Abdelrazek could receive the death penalty if convicted of terrorism, according to Coptic Solidarity. His lawyers say the terrorist group prosecutors accuse him of joining does not exist. They say authorities want to punish him because he refused to “renounce Jesus.”

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) also says Egyptian authorities are holding Abdelrazek because of his Christian faith.

“Said Abdelrazek is detained for his religious conversion and activity,” the commission says in its report on his case.

USCIRF says Russia sent him back to Egypt in 2024 after he sought asylum. Egyptian officials detained him and tried to get him to renounce Christianity. They also tried to make him monitor other converts.

Authorities released him with orders to stop speaking publicly about his faith. Egyptian authorities arrested him again without a warrant in July 2025 after he resumed posting about Christianity online, according to USCIRF.

USCIRF says prison guards and other inmates have abused him because he is Christian.

Amnesty International says security officers arrested him at his Cairo home on July 15, 2025. Authorities held him for nine months before his first hearing in a terrorism court on April 21.

“The Egyptian authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Said Abdelrazek,” Amnesty said in a May appeal.

Sophia also wants the Netherlands to consider exchanging Ahmed Nasser for her fiancé. Dutch authorities arrested Nasser on suspicion of threatening and intimidating people on behalf of a foreign power, the Jerusalem Post reported.

She said she and her fiancé would not live in the Netherlands or ask the Dutch government for money.

Abdelrazek remains in the 10th of Ramadan Prison. Sophia says prison officials will not let her or his family visit him.

“Our lawyer has been able to visit him only once, in January, and we are banned from visiting him ourselves,” she told the Jerusalem Post.

Prison officials have also prevented him from attending religious services. CSW reported in January that officials refused his request to attend an Orthodox Christmas Mass. He told his lawyer he wanted a Bible and Communion.

Before his arrest, Abdelrazek tried to change his government identification to show that he is Christian, according to CSW.

“Thousands of Christian converts in Egypt have no rights and they receive little support. They live in isolation and constant fear,” his lawyer told CSW in July 2025.

His lawyer called Egypt’s promise of religious freedom “a one-way freedom.”

“We call upon the Egyptian authorities to ensure these charges are dropped and that he is released immediately,” CSW founder Mervyn Thomas said in the group’s January statement.

(Image credit: Said Mansour Rezk Abdelrazek, Screenshot/Coptic Solidarity)