When a mysterious plane was intercepted on August 14 in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, by local authorities, Karim Asaad, an investigative journalist working for an Egyptian fact-checking platform matsada2sh got to work.

What he found was a complex network of passengers on board a plane with a suspicious flight path that included recent stops in Dubai, UAE; Tel Aviv, Israel; Cairo, Egypt; and Benghazi and Tripoli, Libya.

On August 19, Egyptian authorities arrested Asaad at his home in the al-Shorouk neighbourhood in eastern Cairo.

Matsada2sh says security forces assaulted Asaad’s wife and threatened their child in the process.