“President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi… has used his constitutional powers” to pardon several prisoners including Douma, said lawyer Tarek Elawady, a member of the presidential pardons committee.

Prominent rights lawyer Khaled Ali meanwhile said on social media he was waiting outside Badr prison on Cairo’s outskirts for the activist’s release.

A court in 2019 had sentenced Douma to 15 years in prison on charges of clashing with security forces in the capital two years earlier, commuting a previous 25-year sentence handed down in 2015.

Egypt’s top appeals court later in 2019 upheld the 15-year sentence, which also included a fine of six million Egyptian pounds ($372,000 at the time).