Jailed journalist Peter Greste granted retrial by Egyptian court
Greste
Australian journalist Peter Greste has been granted a retrial by an Egyptian court a year after being arrested along with two colleagues from Al Jazeera.
At a closed hearing early on Thursday morning the Court of Cassation agreed to the retrial after lawyers for Greste and colleagues Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, who were jailed for seven and ten years last June after being charged with aiding the banned Muslim Brotherhood group.
The court rejected an application for bail, meaning the trio will remain imprisoned until the retrial which could take place within a month, although no date has yet been set.
The Guardian spoke to Greste’s parents Lois and Juris after the hearing with his mother saying: “We need some time to process this. It is not as positive as we had hoped for.”
Greste and Fahmy were handed seven year sentences whilst Mohamed was handed an extra three years for having a spent bullet casing in his possession.
Lawyers for the trio have argued they were not aiding the group, but merely doing their jobs as journalists, and according to the Sydney Morning Herald argued this morning the original trial was an assumption that because they worked for Al Jazeera they supported the Brotherhood, while their arrests in December 2013 preceded the listing of that group as a terrorist organisation.
Greste’s parents alongside journalism groups around the world have been campaigning for the last year to get the trio released.
Alex Hayes
Just get him and his mates home
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