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Khaled El Fiqi/EPA, file
Ahmed Shafiq lost the Egyptian presidential race to Muslim Brotherhood-backed candidate Mohammed Morsi.
CAIRO - Defeated Egyptian presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq left Egypt on Tuesday, local sources reported, a day after a prosecutor referred corruption lawsuits naming him to an investigating judge.
The state news agency MENA said Shafik left Cairo airport unaccompanied on a United Arab Emirates airline early on Tuesday. Shafik was on his way to a religious pilgrimage, aides said.
Shafik's rival Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood was declared winner of a presidential run-off on Sunday.
NBC Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel walks through crowded Tahrir Square as demonstrators celebrate the victory of Egypt's first Muslim Brotherhood President.
A judicial source said the general prosecutor had transferred graft cases against Shafik to the investigating judge on Monday, Reuters reported.
The lawsuits allege that Shafik, a former air force commander, was involved in corrupt land deals and other corruption during his time as civil aviation minister between 2002 and 2011, the source said.
"Ahmed Shafik left today at dawn for Abu Dhabi and from there he will head to the holy lands of Saudi Arabia to perform the Omra (pilgrimage) before returning to his homeland Egypt,'' Shafik's campaign team said on his official Facebook page.
Analysis: Egypt elections only the beginning
Several of Shafik's associates could not immediately be reached for further comment.
AFP - Getty Images
A supporter of Egypt's losing presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq reacts after hearing that he was defeated by Muslim Brotherhood leader, Mohamed Morsi, in Cairo on Sunday.
Morsi, who like many Brotherhood figures spent time in jail during Hosni Mubarak's three-decade rule, said during the election campaign that he was not out to settle scores against the ousted leader's former associates, but that anyone who had broken the law must be held to account.
Now Morsi faces a daunting struggle for power with the still-dominant military rulers who took over after Mubarak was forced out in last year's Arab uprising.
Analysis: Egypt's big turn under Muslim Brotherhood
Mubarak made Shafik prime minister in January last year in an attempt to end mass protests against his rule. A few days later the president stepped down. Shafik lasted another three weeks before he, too, resigned.
Shafik was seen by many as the preferred presidential candidate of the generals who have ruled Egypt since Mubarak's overthrow in February last year.
Big changes are in store for Egypt now that Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, once banned in Egypt, has won Egypt's first democratic presidential election. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
A divisive figure, Shafik was seen as an outsider when the election campaign began. But his tough law-and-order platform appealed to many Egyptians tired of endless social and political turmoil since Mubarak's overthrow.
Egypt's Morsi: Bloodshed will not be in vain
In a military career spanning four decades, Shafik served in wars with Israel and is credited with shooting down an Israeli aircraft in the 1973 war.
As civil aviation minister from 2002 to 2011, he overhauled the state airline EgyptAir and improved the country's airports.
NBC News, msnbc.com staff, Reutes and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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I'm sure he'll return to Egypt after he finishes his religious pilgrimage, sure he will.
Well, when you are President, you have this nice option of deciding what the law is so that you can make sure your opponents have broken it.
The first day of the Muslim Bro and their first victim.They believe in a constitutional secular society about as much as Atilla the Hun believed in peaceful coexistence.They are a clear and present danger to the world and must be watched as closely as the ayatollahs in Iran.And baby,you know where that led to!
Yeah! That led to war. Oh, I forgot Obama didn't take the bait from Netanyahu to make war on Iran. When Romney comes in - war with Iran and missiles on Russia's border - restarting the cold war.
The land of the free and the home of the brave will have our day in Egypt and North Korea and China. Where-ever there is injustice batman and superman will come. We let John Edwards and Nixon go and if other countries know what's good for them, they will follow our lead in everthing - including our religious beliefs.
Women, Christians, others--pack your bags and head for the border NOW. You are completely f'd.
Any losing candidate should be immediately jailed to prevent them from getting away from retribution.
Question is - what will the military folks do. Morsi loves the military but he might love some of them more if they were in jail.
With money and power (MoPow) being the new religion around the world where the rich are getting extremely richer and the middle-poor classes are getting poorer, it seems just about every government and/or candidate around the world are getting more and more corrupt to eventually attain more and more money and power, in that order. That is the prize and everyone will do anything and everything to get that goal.
Pete, Colorado;
"Getting more" has been a hallmark of life on this planet from the moment that some early creature first learned how to eat. If we could only remove temptation from government, things might improve.
Jonathan Swift had a marvelous idea in which elected officials were made to wear big golden medallions around their necks. Actually the hollow medallions were stuffed with gunpowder which, following a negative polling result, would explode.
I don't really support such a mechanism... Although...
Military intervened to the rule of the country but made the right decision by accepting the election result.
Trust among government departments and establishing the acceptable rule of law in the country is the responsibility of the army and the new government.
Not easy; can be done; must be done.
The current condition may lead to a rule acceptable both by the people and the army.
International communities could help to solve the critical problems.
Election of the president was a good start.