An Egyptian court has ordered the release on bail of two Al Jazeera journalists, at the beginning of their retrial on the charge of spreading false news so as to help a terrorist group. BBC was there:
Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed were imprisoned in June along with their Australian colleague, Peter Greste. Egypt’s top appeals court overturned their convictions last month. Mr Greste was freed last week under a law allowing the deportation of foreign nationals to their home countries.
Mr Fahmy has given up his Egyptian citizenship to qualify for deportation to Canada, but Mr Mohamed has no foreign passport. The journalists strenuously deny collaborating with the banned Muslim Brotherhood after the overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi by the military in 2013. They say they were jailed simply for reporting the news.
The first trial of the journalists was widely condemned internationally, and the Court of Cassation ruled on 1 January the the Cairo Criminal Court had been “hasty in pronouncing its verdict”. On Monday, the deputy head of the Court of Cassation, Judge Anwar Gabry, said prosecutors had failed to present conclusive evidence that the defendants helped the Brotherhood or promoted the group.
