Al-Jazeera news channel's Australian journalist Peter Greste, left, and his colleagues, Canadian-Egyptian Mohammed Fahmy, center and Egyptian Baher Mohammed, right, listen to the verdict inside the defendants cage during their trial for allegedly supporting the Muslim Brotherhood on June 23, at the police institute near Cairo's Tora prison. Fahmy and Greste were sentenced to seven years in prison, while Mohammed got 10 years — three more because he was found with a spent bullet casing. Close
An Egyptian appeals court ordered the retrial of three Al-Jazeera journalists imprisoned for more than a year in a case that reflected the strains that developed between Egypt and Qatar following Islamist President Mohamed Mursi’s ouster.
The Court of Cassation accepted the appeal of Australian Peter Greste, Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohamed, who were convicted on charges including undermining Egyptian national security, belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and spreading false information.
Rights organizations and activists condemned the convictions as evidence of a government crackdown on freedoms, particularly targeting Islamists. It was also seen as part of the broader dispute between Egypt and Qatar, which had supported Mursi following his election as Egypt’s first democratically elected civilian president.
Relations between the two nations have begun to thaw, with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in December meeting with a Qatari envoy amid a push by Saudi Arabia to resolve the dispute. Al-Jazeera also shut down its Egyptian affiliate, saying it would seek proper licensing first.
Lawyers for the three men had argued the criminal court’s decision was riddled with inaccuracies and that the prosecution had failed to present any evidence to support the charges. El-Sisi recently issued a decree that would allow for foreigners convicted of a crime to serve their sentences in their home countries, raising hopes that Greste and Fahmy could be repatriated.
To contact the reporters on this story: Tarek El-Tablawy in Cairo at teltablawy@bloomberg.net; Deema Almashabi in Riyadh at dalmashabi@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Samuel Potter at spotter33@bloomberg.net Amy Teibel
Press spacebar to pause and continue. Press esc to stop.
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1EOFAAM
0 comments:
Post a Comment