Jailed reporters: Egypt’s Supreme Court orders retrial

CAIRO: Egypt’s top court Thursday ordered a retrial of three Al-Jazeera reporters whose imprisonment on charges of aiding the Muslim Brotherhood triggered global outrage, but kept them in custody pending a new hearing. Australian Peter Greste, Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohamed of the broadcaster’s English service were detained in December 2013 for spreading false information. Greste and Fahmy each got seven years, and Mohamed was jailed for 10. “The Court of Cassation has accepted their appeal and ordered a retrial,” Greste’s lawyer Amr al-Deeb said Thursday. The defendants were not at the hearing, which lasted just 30 minutes. Hopes for their release have grown since a thaw in diplomatic relations between Egypt and Qatar, where Al-Jazeera is based.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 2^nd, 2014.