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Government urged to halt Egypt arms licences until British political prisoner is released
Laila Soueif (centre), the mother of the 40-year-old British-Egyptian writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah, takes part in a vigil for the jailed pro-democracy activist who has been incarcerated in Egypt for most of the past decade, July 3, 2023
BRITAIN has sent the “completely wrong message” by selling more than £200 million of arms licences to Egypt while British-Egyptian political prisoner Alaa Abd El Fattah remains jailed, campaigners said today.
Campaign Against The Arms Trade (CAAT) revealed the lucrative sales as the dual national’s widowed mother Laila Soueif and relatives met with Foreign Secretary David Lammy on the 60th day of her hunger strike.
They included the largest ever single arms licence on record from Britain to Egypt, worth nearly £80m, for military radars in December 2023.
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