Prominent Egyptian businessman Naguib Sawiris said on Sunday that he had been promised by the Egyptian authorities had that Google Inc executive Wael Gohnim would be freed on Monday.

Ghonim went missing in Cairo last week, after Twitter messages from an account with the user name Wael Ghonim criticized the Egyptian government. Sawiris said during a interview on a television satellite channel he owns that he had asked for Ghonim's release during talks with Vice President Omar Suleiman.