File Photo: UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper. AFP
“I strongly welcome the news that Alaa Abd El-Fattah has received a Presidential pardon,” said Cooper in a short statement on social media, adding that she was grateful to President El-Sisi for this decision.
“We look forward to Alaa being able to return to the UK, to be reunited with his family.” She added.
The release followed an appeal from the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR), which petitioned on 8 September for clemency in a group of cases.
Abdel-Fattah, one of the most prominent figures of Egypt’s 2011 uprising, has faced multiple prosecutions over the past decade.
He was arrested in September 2019 and spent two years in pretrial detention before being sentenced in 2021 to five years in prison for “spreading false news.”
In late 2022, Abdel-Fattah obtained British citizenship through his mother, who was born in London.
In July 2025, a Cairo court removed Abdel-Fattah and six others from Egypt’s terrorism list, where he had been placed in 2020 by a criminal court ruling.
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