Britain's former ambassador to Egypt has urged the government to review its travel advice to the country amid growing outrage over the continued detention of a British-Egyptian activist.
Alaa Abd-El Fattah, a vocal critic of the Egyptian government, has been detained since September 2019. In 2021 he was sentenced to five years in prison on 'spurious charges' of 'broadcasting false news'.
Authorities refused to release him last September, ignoring the two years already held in pre-trial detention. He was held at the hellhole Tora Maximum Security prison before being moved in 2022 amid backlash against the dire conditions.
John Casson, who was the British ambassador to Egypt between 2014 and 2018, wrote to The Times denouncing the 'bogus charges' against 'democracy writer' Mr Fattah and calling on the government to act and warn others travelling to the country.
The government must 'deploy the full range of tools it has to protect British citizens', he wrote in the letter cosigned by former Foreign Office minister Lord Hain and interim chair of the APPG on arbitrary detention and hostage affairs, Brendan O'Hara, among others.
