Congress presses Egypt on injured US citizen
Congress wants Cairo to compensate an American citizen who was grievously injured when Egyptian security forces attacked a tourist group with US-made weapons.
April Corley was a champion roller skater until Egyptian security forces bombed her tour group using US-made helicopters in September 2015. The errant attack in the country’s Western Desert severely injured the American citizen and killed 12 others, including eight Mexicans and four Egyptians.
Three years later, Congress is demanding that Cairo compensate Corley for her medical bills.
Annual foreign aid spending legislation advanced by the Senate Appropriations Committee on June 21 includes a provision directing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to report to Congress on Egyptian efforts to “provide fair compensation to American citizen April Corely [sic] for injuries and losses sustained” during the attack. And last week the House Foreign Aid Panel attached report language to its version of the bill urging Pompeo to “as appropriate, press the government of Egypt to expeditiously resolve in a fair and just manner the claims arising from the … incident involving Egyptian security forces and American and Mexican nationals.”
Al-Monitor first reported last month that the top Democrat on the committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., had placed a $105 million hold on military aid to Egypt earlier this year, in part because of Egypt’s failure to compensate Corley. Her family has set up a crowdfunding site to help her with $400,000 in medical bills, but to date it has only raised slightly more than $48,000.
