PRIME MINISTER Sir Keir Starmer has been urged “to act now before it’s too late” to free a jailed British-Egyptian pro-democracy activist as his 68-year-old mother weakens from a hunger strike.

Alaa Abd Fattah, 43, has been detained in Egypt since September 29 2019, and in December 2021 was sentenced to five years in prison after being accused of spreading false news.

Today, his 68-year-old mother Professor Laila Soueif, who has been on hunger strike for 117 days in protest over her son’s imprisonment, said Sir Keir had not “deigned to reply” to a letter she sent him last week about her son’s plight.