Egypt releases imprisoned Al Jazeera reporter

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Greste, Egyptian-Canadian Mohammed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohammed were arrested in December 2013 over their coverage of the violent crackdown on protests.

Al Jazeera English producer Baher Mohamed (left), Canadian-Egyptian acting Cairo bureau chief Mohammed Fahmy (centre) and correspondent Peter Greste appear in court along with several other defendants during their trial. –AP file

 

Cairo – A reporter for Al Jazeera English was released from an Egyptian prison and deported on Sunday after more than a year behind bars, but his two Egyptian colleagues remained jailed in a case widely condemned as a sham by human-rights groups.

Australian Peter Greste was whisked away on a flight to Cyprus. His release came as a welcome surprise to fellow reporters and activists who spent months pressing for his freedom.

But rights groups and Greste’s Qatar-based broadcaster called on Egypt to release the other two defendants in the case, which has hindered the country’s international standing as it struggles to recover from the political unrest and economic collapse caused by the 2011 uprising.

Greste, Egyptian-Canadian Mohammed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohammed were arrested in December 2013 over their coverage of the violent crackdown on protests following the military overthrow of President Mohammed Mursi.

Egyptian authorities accused them of providing a platform for Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, now declared a terrorist organisation. But authorities provided no concrete evidence. The journalists and their supporters insist they were doing their jobs during a time of violent upheaval.

“Hard to believe but YES (at)PeterGreste is a free man,” his brother Andrew wrote on Twitter.

An Egyptian prison official and the nation’s official news agency said Greste was released following a presidential “approval.” The official and an Interior Ministry statement said he was released under a new deportation law passed last year. The law appeared to have been tailored to the Al Jazeera case.

Acting Al Jazeera Director-General Mostefa Souag said the Qatar-based network “will not rest until Baher and Mohamed also regain their freedom.”

Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, welcomed the news of Greste’s release but said “nothing can make up for his ordeal” and called for the others to be released.

“It is vital that in the celebratory fanfare surrounding his deportation the world does not forget the continuing ordeal” of his co-workers.

Canada also welcomed the “positive developments,” saying it was hopeful that Fahmy’s case would be “resolved shortly,” according to a statement from the office of the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Consular.

The three were convicted on terrorism charges and for spreading false information, faking reports to show that the country was on the verge of civil war and aiding the Brotherhood’s goal of portraying Egypt as a failed state.

Mohammed received an additional three years for his possession of a spent bullet he had picked up as a souvenir. Three other foreign reporters received 10-year sentences in absentia. Twelve other co-defendants were sentenced to between seven and 10 years, some of them in absentia.

An appeals court overturned their verdict in January and ordered a retrial. No date has been set for the case.

Greste, 49, had only been in Egypt for a few weeks when he was detained. Fahmy had taken up his post as an acting bureau chief only a couple of months before his arrest.

After freelancing in Britain, Greste joined the BBC as its Afghanistan correspondent in 1995. The following year, he covered Yugoslavia for Reuters before returning to the BBC.

He spent more than a decade with the British broadcaster, reporting from across Latin America, the Middle East and Africa before joining Al Jazeera in 2011 — the year he won a prestigious Peabody Award for a BBC report on Somalia. Greste’s hometown is Brisbane, Australia, but he now lives in Nairobi.

Fahmy, 40, has reported for CNN and the New York Times. He had to put off his marriage plans because of the trial.

Mohammed’s wife gave birth to a child while he was in prison. He will not benefit from the deportation law because he does not have another nationality. His wife, Jehane, said she couldn’t imagine that his colleagues would be set free while he languishes in jail.

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