An Egyptian immigrant’s appeal for refugee status was upheld by the Refugee Appeals Board, after it heard how he had been sentenced to six years in prison for preaching the Coptic religion and disrespecting Islam.

The board heard how the 32-year-old man born in Fayoum in Egypt, who is not being named due to personal safety reasons, comes from a family of Coptic Christians.

He had applied for refugee status but was turned down by the Refugee Commissioner.

The Egyptian authorities discovered he was preaching and converting people from Islam to Coptic Christianity when he was working as a carpenter in Libya – unbeknown to him alongside an Egyptian Criminal Investigation Department officer. The officer was reporting back to his superiors in Egypt.

The man had been working with two Egyptian Christian men who had left and returned to Egypt and who, he was told by a priest, had been blacklisted and imprisoned. The same priest told him that it was best if he did not return to Egypt to escape the same fate.

The man said the police were sent to his house in Egypt twice asking for him and questioned his family on his whereabouts and as a result his family had to flee and he has lost contact with them.

In June 2005, after working for five years in Libya, he came to Malta irregularly with an Egyptian identity card but no visa. He was afraid to return home as he would be imprisoned as he had been sentenced to six years in absentia.

The board, chaired by lawyer Joe Mifsud, said it had taken a careful and considered assessment of the totality of his background, immigration history and evidence presented in the appeal.

The board found he had not only suffered severe discrimination and persecution for being a Coptic Christian but he was also sentenced to jail in absentia for having preached a different religion to Islam without a licence and disrespected the same religion.

The board said the Egyptian judgment found the fact he had converted people from Islam, “this had given rise to conflict and problems in society”.

The man had been beaten and tortured to reveal the whereabouts of a policeman whom he had converted and this officer had fled the country with his family.

The board also considered the declaration of Fr Rofaeel Samy at St George’s Church in El Faiyum, who said that the man is currently blacklisted and wanted by the police.

Fr Samy said the man’s family has also been targeted and should he set foot back in Egypt he would almost certainly be arrested, imprisoned, tortured and killed like so many others over the past five years.

The board upheld the appeal and awarded him refugee status.

Legal procurator Quentin Tanti represented the man. Board members were Claudio Zammit and Edmond Mizzi.