LONDON (AP) — The U.K. prime minister is facing criticism after he celebrated the return to Britain of a human rights activist who was recently released from an Egyptian prison but whose past social media posts apparently contained violent and antisemitic language.
Successive British governments have campaigned for the release of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a dual national who had been imprisoned in Egypt for most of the past 14 years. He returned to the U.K. on Friday after Egyptian authorities lifted a travel ban that had forced him to remain in the country since he was freed in September.
But a senior member of the opposition Conservative Party on Saturday criticized Prime Minister Keir Starmer for giving a “personal, public endorsement” to Abd el-Fattah when Starmer said he was “delighted” the activist had been reunited with his family in Britain.
Robert Jenrick, the Conservative spokesman on justice issues, demanded to know whether Starmer knew about historical social media posts in which Abd el-Fattah allegedly endorsed killing “Zionists’’ and police. Jenrick also called on Starmer to condemn Abd el-Fattah’s statements and withdraw his “unalloyed endorsement” of the activist.
“Nobody should be imprisoned arbitrarily nor for peaceful dissent,’’ Jenrick wrote. “But neither should the prime minister place the authority of his office behind someone whose own words cross into the language of racism and bloodshed."
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said in a statement that it had been “a long-standing priority” of governments under both major parties to work for Abd el-Fattah’s release. But that does not imply an endorsement of his social media posts, the spokesman said.
“The government condemns Mr. El-Fattah’s historic tweets and considers them to be abhorrent,” the statement said, using a slightly different style for his last name.
Abd el-Fattah’s family in the U.K. had vigorously campaigned for his release, arguing that he had spent most of the past 14 years behind bars because of his opposition to the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
His mother, Laila Soueif, 69, staged a 10-month hunger strike to pressure British authorities to do more to secure her son’s release.
Starmer on Friday paid tribute to Abd el-Fattah’s family and all the others who campaigned for his freedom.
“I’m delighted that Alaa Abd El-Fattah is back in the U.K. and has been reunited with his loved ones, who must be feeling profound relief,” Starmer said.
But soon after Abd el-Fattah arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport, critics began circulating historical social media posts in which he appeared to endorse the killing of Zionists and police.
The Times of London reported that Abd el-Fattah has previously said the comments were taken out of context and were part of a “private conversation” that took place during an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Abd el-Fattah’s press team didn’t immediately response to a request for comment, and it was not immediately clear whether the posts were authentic.
FILE - Pro-democracy activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who was in prison for almost all of the past 12 years, speaks to his friends at his home after he got a presidential pardon, in Cairo, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Khaled Elfiqi, File)
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump will host his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on Sunday to try to close out a peace agreement that would end nearly four years of war sparked by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia intensified its attacks on Ukraine's capital and elsewhere in the days before the meeting.
The two will meet at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Florida, where the U.S. president is spending the holidays. Zelenskyy, who arrived in Miami in the morning, said the two planned to discuss security and economic agreements in their early afternoon meeting. He said he will raise “territorial issues” as Moscow and Kyiv remain fiercely at odds over the fate of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
In overnight developments, three guided aerial bombs launched by Russia struck private homes in the eastern city of Sloviansk, according to the head of the local military administration, Vadym Lakh. Three people were injured and one man died, Lakh said in a post on the Telegram messenger app.
The strike came the day after Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital with ballistic missiles and drones on Saturday, killing at least one person and wounding 27, a day before planned talks between the leaders of Ukraine and the United States, Ukrainian authorities said. Explosions boomed across Kyiv as the attack began in the early morning and continued for hours.
“Ukraine is willing to do whatever it takes to stop this war,” Zelenskyy posted Saturday on X. “We need to be strong at the negotiating table.”
In response to the attacks, he wrote: “We want peace, and Russia demonstrates a desire to continue the war. If the whole world — Europe and America — is on our side, together we will stop" Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Saturday, Zelenskyy said the key to peace is “pressure on Russia and sufficient, strong support for Ukraine.” To that end, Carney announced more economic assistance from his government to help Ukraine rebuild.
Denouncing the “barbarism” of Russia’s latest attacks on Kyiv, Carney credited both Zelenskyy and Trump with creating the conditions for a “just and lasting peace” at a crucial moment.
Trump and Zelenskyy sitting down face-to-face also underscored the apparent progress made by Trump’s top negotiators in recent weeks as the sides traded draft peace plans and continued to shape a proposal to end the fighting. Zelenskyy told reporters Friday that the 20-point draft proposal negotiators have discussed is “about 90% ready” — echoing a figure, and the optimism, that U.S. officials conveyed when Trump’s chief negotiators met with Zelenskyy in Berlin earlier this month.
During the recent talks, the U.S. agreed to offer certain security guarantees to Ukraine similar to those offered to other members of NATO. The proposal came as Zelenskyy said he was prepared to drop his country’s bid to join the security alliance if Ukraine received NATO-like protection that would be designed to safeguard it against future Russian attacks.
Zelenskyy also spoke on Christmas Day with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. The Ukrainian leader said in a post on X that they discussed “certain substantive details" and cautioned in a subsequent post that “there is still work to be done on sensitive issues” and “the weeks ahead may also be intensive.”
The U.S. president has been working to end the war in Ukraine for much of his first year back in office, showing irritation with both Zelenskyy and Putin while publicly acknowledging the difficulty of ending the conflict. Long gone are the days when, as a candidate in 2024, he boasted that he could resolve the fighting in a day.
After hosting Zelenskyy at the White House in October, Trump demanded that both Russia and Ukraine halt fighting and “stop at the battle line,” implying that Moscow should be able to keep the territory it has seized from Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said last week that he would be willing to withdraw troops from Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end the war, if Russia also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday that the Kremlin had already been in contact with U.S.
“It was agreed upon to continue the dialogue,” he said.
Putin has publicly said he wants all the areas in four key regions that have been captured by his forces, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, illegally annexed in 2014, to be recognized as Russian territory. He also has insisted that Ukraine withdraw from some areas in eastern Ukraine that Moscow’s forces haven’t captured. Kyiv has publicly rejected all those demands.
The Kremlin also wants Ukraine to abandon its bid to join NATO. It warned that it wouldn’t accept the deployment of any troops from members of the military alliance and would view them as a “legitimate target.”
Putin also has said Ukraine must limit the size of its army and give official status to the Russian language, demands he has made from the outset of the conflict.
Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told the business daily Kommersant this month that Russian police and national guard would stay in parts of Donetsk -– one of the two major areas, along with Luhansk, that make up the Donbas region — even if they become a demilitarized zone under a prospective peace plan.
Ushakov cautioned that trying to reach a compromise could take a long time. He said U.S. proposals that took into account Russian demands had been “worsened” by alterations proposed by Ukraine and its European allies.
Trump has been somewhat receptive to Putin’s demands, making the case that the Russian president can be persuaded to end the war if Kyiv agrees to cede Ukrainian land in the Donbas region and if Western powers offer economic incentives to bring Russia back into the global economy.
Kim reported from Washington and Morton from London. Associated Press writers Illia Novikov in Kyiv and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump waves as he departs Trump International Golf Club, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
A psychologist of a rescue team helps en elderly woman at the hospice which was damaged after a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, on Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Rescuers put fragments of a body of the victim into a plastic bag after Russian drone hit a multi-storey apartment building during massive missile and drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
President Donald Trump pumps his fist at Christmas Eve dinner at his Mar-a-Lago club, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hold a news conference in Halifax, N.S. on Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025.(Riley Smith /The Canadian Press via AP)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a media conference at the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
