Authorities to evaluation 'info failures' in British-Egyptian activist case

[ad_1] Helen Catt , Political correspondent and

Ian Aikman

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/f9c6/live/78385600-e4ef-11f0-a8dc-93c15fe68710.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/f9c6/live/78385600-e4ef-11f0-a8dc-93c15fe68710.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/f9c6/live/78385600-e4ef-11f0-a8dc-93c15fe68710.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/f9c6/live/78385600-e4ef-11f0-a8dc-93c15fe68710.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/f9c6/live/78385600-e4ef-11f0-a8dc-93c15fe68710.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/f9c6/live/78385600-e4ef-11f0-a8dc-93c15fe68710.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/f9c6/live/78385600-e4ef-11f0-a8dc-93c15fe68710.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/f9c6/live/78385600-e4ef-11f0-a8dc-93c15fe68710.jpg.webp" loading="eager" alt="Reuters Alaa Abd El Fattah pictured smiling and gesturing" class="sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA"/> Reuters Overseas Secretary Yvette Cooper has launched a evaluation into what she calls "severe info failures" within the case of British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah.

In a letter to the Overseas Affairs Choose Committee, Cooper stated she, Sir Keir Starmer and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy "had been all unaware" of Mr Abd El Fattah's historic tweets, which they take into account to be "abhorrent".

It comes after the Conservatives and Reform UK known as for the activist to be stripped of UK citizenship and deported after social media posts emerged wherein he known as for Zionists to be killed.

Mr Abd El Fattah has apologised, saying he understood "how surprising and hurtful" the posts had been.

Sir Keir Starmer has been criticised for saying he was "delighted" by Mr Abd El Fattah's arrival within the UK on Friday, three months after the democracy activist was free of jail in Egypt.

On Monday, Sir Keir stated the resurfaced tweets had been "completely abhorrent" and stated the federal government was "taking steps to evaluation the knowledge failures on this case".

"With the rise of antisemitism, and up to date horrific assaults, I do know this has added to the misery of many within the Jewish neighborhood within the UK," he added.

Conservative shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick, who led the criticism of Sir Keir's welcome for Mr Abd El Fattah, swiftly responded by renewing his name for the activist to be faraway from the UK.

On Monday night, Reform UK stated that it might change the regulation to make sure Mr Abd El Fattah could possibly be stripped of his British citizenship and deported.

The celebration's chief, Nigel Farage, stated earlier Conservative and Labour governments had "opened our doorways to evil individuals".

In her letter to the Overseas Affairs committee, Cooper stated work began over the weekend revealed that earlier international secretaries and prime ministers had made public statements on Mr Abd El Fattah's case "with out all related info".

She added that present and former ministers had been "by no means briefed on these tweets once they spoke publicly in regards to the case", and the civil servants in control of the case "had been additionally unaware" of them.

Cooper stated it was clear there had been an "unacceptable failure" and that longstanding due diligence procedures had been "fully insufficient for this case".

The international secretary added she was "deeply involved" that the re-emergence of those tweets, alongside social media posts welcoming Mr Abd El Fattah's return posted by her and different members of the federal government, had "added to the misery felt by Jewish communities within the UK and I very a lot remorse that".

She informed the committee she had requested probably the most senior civil servant within the Overseas Workplace to evaluation the "severe info failures on this case" and the broader methods that had been in place within the division for finishing up due diligence on high-profile consular and human rights instances to ensure they had been working correctly and that "all vital classes are discovered".

In a single resurfaced tweet, from 2012, Mr Abd El Fattah seems to say: "I'm a racist, I do not like white individuals". In one other, he seems to say he considers "killing any colonialists and specifically Zionists heroic, we have to kill extra of them".

He's additionally accused of claiming police wouldn't have rights and "we must always kill all of them".

Earlier on Monday, Mr Abd El Fattah "unequivocally" apologised for the tweets.

He stated he took allegations of antisemitism "very severely" whereas arguing a few of the posts had been "fully twisted out of their which means".

He added: "I'm shaken that, simply as I'm being reunited with my household for the primary time in 12 years, a number of historic tweets of mine have been republished and used to query and assault my integrity and values, escalating to requires the revocation of my citizenship."

The Overseas Workplace stated it had been "a long-standing precedence below successive governments" to work for Mr Abd El Fattah's launch.

The 44-year-old was convicted in 2021 of "spreading pretend information" in Egypt for sharing a Fb put up about torture within the nation following a trial that human rights teams stated was grossly unfair.

He was granted British citizenship in December 2021 by means of his London-born mom, when the Conservatives had been in energy.

Shadow residence secretary Chris Philp, who was an immigration minister till September 2021, stated he was not conscious of Mr Abd El Fattah's tweets at the moment, however he now believed the activist "ought to have his citizenship revoked".

"There is no such thing as a excuse for what he wrote," Philp informed BBC Radio 4's As we speak programme on Monday.

On the identical programme, Labour's Dame Emily Thornberry, who chairs the Overseas Affairs committee, accused Philp of "throwing concepts round that had been simply not based mostly in regulation".

"The underside and prime of it's that he [Mr Abd El Fattah] is a British citizen," she stated.

"He was entitled to British citizenship, he claimed it, so he's a British citizen. The British authorities has been doing their utmost to get him again into the nation and out of jail."

A authorities supply stated Mr Abd El Fatteh arrived within the nation as a British citizen and there have been no authorized avenues out there to dam his entry, even when officers had been conscious of his earlier social media posts.

It's understood that Downing Avenue believes there's a excessive bar to somebody having their citizenship revoked as a result of they should have both obtained citizenship by fraud or be deemed to pose a big nationwide safety menace - a check unlikely to be met on this case.

On Monday, the PM's official spokesman stated: "We welcome the return of a British citizen unfairly detained overseas, as we might in all instances and as we have now completed up to now."

"That stated, it does not change the truth that we have now condemned the character of those historic tweets, and we take into account them to be abhorrent, and we have been very clear about that."

A author and software program developer, Mr Abd El Fattah rose to prominence throughout a 2011 rebellion that pressured the previous Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, to resign.

He has spent greater than a decade of his life behind bars and his launch in September after a presidential pardon adopted a protracted marketing campaign by his household and lobbying by the British authorities.