Washington – U.S. President, Donald Trump, on Friday met at the White House with a US aid worker freed from an Egyptian prison after behind-the-scenes efforts by Trump’s administration to secure her release.
Aya Hijazi, an Egyptian-American aid worker, her husband and several members of the non-governmental organisation they founded had been held without trial for nearly three years by Egyptian authorities.
Report says members of the public widely believed the charges were false accompanied by a crackdown on foreign NGOs in Egypt.
However, an Egyptian court acquitted them on Sunday.
“We are very happy to have Aya back home and it’s a great honour to have her in the Oval Office,’’ Trump said.
Trump had been criticised by human rights groups for not publicly raising Hijazi’s case and other human rights issues during a meeting with Egyptian President, Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi, earlier this month.
White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, said Trump had in fact raised the case privately with the Egyptian leader amid ongoing U.S. diplomatic efforts to secure her release.
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