Cairo/Washington, Feb 7 (IANS) A senior Google executive, who mysteriously went missing over a week ago after emerging as a key figure in the Egypt protests against the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak, is going to be released Monday, his family said.

Wael Ghonim, who is in his 30s, is a political activist and Google's top executive in the Middle East.

During his disappearance, Wall Street Journal reported that Ghonim emerged as a central symbol of the anti-Mubarak protests, cast as the face of a movement and hero in the cause of democracy.

The protest organisers at downtown Cairo's Tahrir Square adopted him as a symbolic leader. The demonstrations against Mubarak entered the 14th day Monday. Mubarak has said he is ready to leave, but not now.

The defiant protesters, who suspected that he may have been arrested, declared that they wouldn't leave the square until he was freed.

Nearly a fortnight into the protest Sunday, Egyptian authorities spoke up on Ghonim's fate.