MILAN — A high-profile Egyptian activist who was lately launched from jail landed Sunday in Italy, the place the federal government championed his case.

Patrick George Zaki was greeted by applause and a throng of video and nonetheless cameras as he emerged into the arrivals corridor at Milan’s Malpensa Airport after touring on a industrial flight. He continued to Bologna, the place he had been residing and finding out earlier than being detained in Cairo in 2020.

“This is crucial day of my life,’’ Zaki, 32, advised reporters as he made is means by means of the Milan airport. Later, in Bologna, he pledged to proceed his human rights work.

Zaki’s case has echoed in Italy, reminding most of the tragic destiny of Italian pupil Giulio Regeni who was kidnapped and killed in Cairo in 2016. The Italian authorities had repeatedly known as for Zaki’s launch since his arrest in 2020.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni advised reporters in Rome that Zaki’s return was “the result of diplomacy, founded on the basis of mutual respect.”

She added that Italy had not stopped urgent for readability on Regeni’s destiny from Egyptian authorities. “I don’t consider the issue closed. I continue to work on it, as I did with the case of Zaki, without speaking (publicly).”

Zaki was pardoned final week, simply days after an Egyptian courtroom convicted him of a cost of disseminating false information, stemming from an article he wrote in 2019 about alleged discrimination in opposition to Coptic Christians in Egypt.

Zaki, who's Christian, was arrested in February 2020 shortly after touchdown in Cairo for a quick journey residence from Italy. He spent 22 months in jail earlier than being launched in 2021 pending trial, on situation he stay in Egypt.

He obtained a grasp’s diploma with distinction earlier this month from the University of Bologna, defending his thesis by video convention.

In Bologna, he was obtained by college officers, who awarded him his diploma in individual.

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