Student arrested in US for anti-Trump remarks to return to Egypt willingly: Lawyer

Emad al-Sayed, the Egyptian student who was arrested in the United States after posting a Facebook statement attacking Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, has chosen to return to Egypt of his own free will and was not deported, according to his lawyer Hany Beshry.

Sayed refused to remain in custody pending investigations and therefore decided to return to Egypt, Beshry — an immigration lawyer based in the US — told the privately owned newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm on Monday. The lawyer expects Sayed to return home by the end of this week.

The authorities will not press charges against Sayed as long as he leaves the country, but his US visa was revoked by the State Department, the Associated Press reported Friday. 

On February 3, the 23-year-old Universal Air Academy student posted an article about Trump on his personal Facebook page with the comment that he would be willing to spend his life in jail for assassinating the controversial candidate. The next day, police raided Sayed’s Los Angeles home, searching his laptop, personal belongings and car, according to his lawyer.

On February 11, the Universal Air Academy’s owner invited Sayed to his office for a meeting. When the aspiring pilot arrived, he was instead greeted by two secret service agencies who arrested him on the spot, Beshry alleged.

Several US-based civil rights organizations offered to defend Sayed, Beshry told Al-Masry Al-Youm, but the student chose to return to Egypt instead of potentially facing charges. Belshy noted that Sayed was held in “humane conditions” and did not report any abuse in detention.

Both local and international media outlets extensively covered the case, which has rekindled the uproar around Trump’s anti-Muslim statements. In a written statement issued in December 2015, Trump’s official campaign stated that he wanted a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.”

He later stated during a Republican debate that Muslims are "not coming to this country if I'm president. And if Obama has brought some to this country, they are leaving, they're going, they're gone."

Hate crimes against Muslim-Americans saw a significant spike following the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris, France on November 13. The New York Times cited an analysis by California State University as showing that such crimes tripled in the wake of the attacks, with incidents ranging from mobs pulling hijabs off of women, vandalizing mosques and threatening Muslim-owned businesses.