Egypt refers YouTuber to criminal court after she claimed her children committed incest

The Egyptian prosecutor-general referred YouTuber Heba El-Sayed to the criminal court over charges of human trafficking and child endangerment after she had streamed a controversial video with her young children last month, an official statement released Monday evening said.

Sayed, nicknamed "Umm Ziad and Heba," made news headlines earlier in May after claiming in a video posted on her YouTuber channel that she caught her teenage son and daughter committing incest.

The YouTuber, who lives in a lower-middle-class area in Qalyoubia province, north of the capital of Cairo, appeared in a 35-minute video narrating the incident, which sparked shockwaves across the country.

After the release of the video, the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) and several lawyers and advocates of children's rights were quick to file official complaints against Sayed. She was arrested shortly afterwards.

The YouTuber's son and husband have also been referred to the criminal court for allegedly aiding her in making and broadcasting the video, according to the prosecutor general's statement.

The prosecution-general ordered the arrest of the husband, who is currently at large, after referring him, in absentia, to the criminal court.

According to the prosecution-general's office, investigations and interrogation of the suspects revealed that Sayed aimed by her claims to gain more viewership on social media. 

The video has attracted 691,000 views so far on YouTube alone at the time of publishing.