Belgian intern Cleo Mampaey interned between January 17 and June 3, 2019, with the Center for Arab-West Understanding. During her internship, she visited Belgian prisoner Lesley Maras who has been in an Egyptian prison since 2006 because he had been so stupid to accept wrong counseling to take drugs with him to Egypt because he had debts and this was supposed to help reduce those debts. Egyptian authorities are cracking down on any effort to smuggle drugs and Leslie was sentenced to life in prison which is in Egypt 25 years. Leslie acknowledges that he has made mistakes but is not a criminal.  

Both Cleo and Leslie are from the same city Antwerp and thus they could refer to places that both know.

After Cleo returned to Antwerp she met with Leslie’s parents who do not have the funding to hire a good lawyer, do not have the needed education nor connections to make Belgian authorities move towards a prisoner exchange treaty which possibly could bring Leslie back to Belgium. His parents are getting old and struggle with the fact that one day they may no longer be able to visit Leslie once per year as they do now. They may not live to see him as a free man again. Of course, they are struggling with this. After Cleo’s meeting with Leslie’s parents she wrote Leslie a deeply personal letter. Cornelis Hulsman was so moved by this deeply human letter that he asked Leslie, his parents and Cleo to translate this for Arab-West Report so that others can see what a kind man Leslie truly is. Leslie, his parents and Cleo agreed.