CAIRO (AP)– An American medical trainee detained without trial in an Egyptian jail for almost 500 days has been freed and returned to the United States, the U.S. State Department said on Monday.
The release of Mohamed Amashah, a double Egyptian-American citizen from Jersey City, New Jersey, followed months of pressure from the Trump administration, according to the Flexibility Initiative group, which advocated on his behalf.
” We welcome the release of U.S. resident Mohamed Amashah from Egyptian custody, and thank Egypt for its cooperation in his repatriation,” the State Department stated.
The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, stated he ‘d personally raised the problem of “unjustly detained Americans” with Egypt’s foreign ministry recently.
Like thousands of political detainees in Egypt, Amashah, 24, had actually been held in pre-trial detention on charges of “misusing social networks” and “aiding a terrorist group,”