Speaker of the People’s Assembly and prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood Saad al-Katatny left Cairo for Kuwait on Sunday without prior security permission, in an unprecedented trip demonstrating how much the country has changed in the past year.
Leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood, banned during the rule of former President Hosni Mubarak, weren’t allowed to travel abroad without permission from the secret police, the disbanded State Security Investigation Services.
Katatny passed through Cairo International Airport’s VIP lounge with his newly issued diplomatic passport and was welcomed by security agents, the Freedom and Justice daily newspaper reported Monday.
This is the first time for Katatny to leave the country as speaker of the People’s Assembly.
Katatny is traveling to Kuwait for a meeting of the Arab Inter-parliamentary Union.
He told reporters at the airport that the meeting will tackle issues that have become of parliamentary concern after the breakout of pro-democracy revolts in the Arab region more than a year ago.
