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Posted: Sun, Dec. 11, 2011, 3:01 AM Drexel student tells of ordeal after arrest in Egypt
By Michael Matza
Inquirer Staff Writer
ED HILLE / Staff Photographer
Greg Porter, with attorney Theodore "Ted" Simon, was held with two other students.
Sleepless, disoriented, accused of throwing firebombs at Egyptian police, Glenside native Gregory Porter, 19, didn't know whom to trust when he appeared in a Cairo courtroom last month on charges he says were false.
In court, a man told him in accented English that he was on the legal team hired by Porter's parents.
"Shane Victorino," he said, "is your sister's fiance!"
An old family joke because Porter's sister, Hillary, is so in love with the Phillies star.
"When he said that," Porter told The Inquirer in his first extended interview, "I knew he was [sent by] my family."
Attorney Theodore "Ted" Simon, who headed the legal effort from Philadelphia, had asked his Cairo contact to use the joke for authentication.
For Porter, a Drexel University sophomore who studied Arabic, Islam, and Egyptian history on a semester abroad at the American University in Cairo, the encounter was one of the surreal and scary moments that began Nov. 21 with his arrest in Tahrir Square.
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[but read the rest for fascinating details of the ongoing protests... - alert]