Cairo: Two Al Jazeera journalists were freed from an Egyptian prison yesterday pending retrial, their families said, after spending more than a year in jail in a case that provoked global uproar.
A Cairo court on Thursday ordered the release of Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohamed, who face retrial on charges of supporting the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood.
“We finished the procedures for the release of my brother a short while ago,” Mohamed’s brother Assem said.
“He is at home for the first time in more than a year.”
Fahmy’s brother Adel posted on Twitter: “My brother has been released from the police station! I am going on holiday before they arrest him again!”
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed their release, urging authorities to free other journalists “in accordance with Egypt’s international obligations to protect the freedoms of expression and association”.
Fahmy, Mohamed and Australian Peter Greste were arrested in December 2013 and sentenced to between seven and 10 years for aiding the Muslim Brotherhood of ousted president Mohamed Morsi.
Greste was deported on February 1.
AFP
