Failings in case of Abd el-Fattah were avoidable, ministers told

The government could have avoided “embarrassing failures” in the case of Alaa Abd el-Fattah by having a special envoy deal with complex cases involving Britons detained abroad, Emily Thornberry has said.

- Harriet Sherwood

The chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee criticised “serious shortcomings” in information sharing, which she said could have been resolved by having a dedicated official carry out background checks.

The then foreign secretary David Lammy said in 2024 that the government would appoint an envoy to deal with “complex detention cases” involving Britons abroad, but no such figure has been named.

In a letter to the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, Thornberry said: “Had an envoy been established [in 2024] ... it is clear to me that such embarrassing failures of due diligence and information sharing would have been avoided. It would have been firmly within the envoy’s remit to carry out appropriate background and social media checks.”

Abd el-Fattah, who is at the centre of a storm over social media comments he made more than a decade ago, arrived back in the UK on Boxing Day after being pardoned and freed from prison in Egypt.