More than a week after his mysterious disappearance in Egypt, Google executive and political activist Wael Ghonim will be released from government detention on Monday, according to his family and a prominent businessman.

During his disappearance, Mr. Ghonim, a father of two who is in his 30s, emerged as a central symbol of the antigovernment protests, cast as the face of a movement and hero in the cause of democracy. Protest organizers in Cairo's central Tahrir Square adopted him as a symbolic leader. Suspecting his arrest—but...