Cairo: A court ordered the release of two Aljazeera journalists yesterday pending retrial, after they spent more than 400 days in prison in a case that sparked worldwide outrage.
Canadian Mohamed Fahmy, whose family hoped he would be deported, must pay 250,000 Egyptian pounds ($33,000) bail.
His colleague, Egyptian Baher Mohamed, was freed without having to pay bail. Both must appear in court again on February 23.
They entered the packed courtroom in white prison uniforms, after Australian colleague Peter Greste was deported home earlier this month.
The three were accused of supporting the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood and originally jailed for between seven and 10 years each. Greste congratulated his colleagues. “This is a huge step forward. Not time to declare it over, but at least you get to go home!” he tweeted. A message on Fahmy’s Twitter feed said: “I AM FREE”.
Heather Allan, Head, Newsgathering, Aljazeera English, said: “We are very grateful. This is a great, great day for us and we just hope that... the whole thing is thrown out.”
During yesterday’s first session of retrial, Fahmy was allowed out of the caged dock to address the judge. “I didn’t ask to drop my (Egyptian) nationality,” he said, his arm in a blue sling from an accident he had suffered before arrest.
“A security official visited me and asked I drop my citizenship because the state wanted to get the case done with, it had become a nightmare,” Fahmy said before unfurling a large Egyptian flag.
Greste was on the judge’s roll call of defendants at the start of the trial. “He’s not here sir,” responded a police officer when the judge called out his name.
The three journalists had spent more than a year in jail before an appeals court ordered a retrial.
The Court of Cassation ruled in January that the lower court “lacked evidence to support its ruling” in the original verdict.
The three were arrested in December 2013, charged with spreading false news about Egypt and supporting Muslim Brotherhood.
The journalists were among 20 defendants initially tried by the lower court. Aljazeera network welcomed the release on bail of two journalists as a “small step in the right direction” but urged the court to dismiss the case and release them permanently, reports QNA.
“Bail is a small step in the right direction, and allows Baher and Mohamed to spend time with their families after 411 days apart. The focus is still on the court reaching the correct verdict at the next hearing by dismissing this absurd case and releasing both these fine journalists unconditionally,” the network said in a statement.
Agencies
