CAIRO — Pro-democracy Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah was pardoned and released Monday after nearly 12 years in prison.

“An exceptionally kind day. Alaa is free,” his sister Mona Seif wrote on social media site X along with a picture of her brother smiling with his mother Laila Soueif and sister Sanaa Seif.

Sanaa Seif posted on Facebook that her brother arrived at home while they were waiting with for him at Wadi Natron Prison outside Cairo.

Abd el-Fattah and five other prisoners had been pardoned after the National Council for Human Rights acted on behalf of their families and urged President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to consider their situations on humanitarian grounds.

He was arrested 2014 for participating in an unauthorized protest and allegedly assaulting a police office

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