adminAL-JAZEERA’S Australian reporter Peter Greste and fellow journalists from the satellite news channel were back in court in Egypt yesterday after spending nearly 100 days in jail since their arrest.Greste and his co-defendants are charged with spreading false news and supporting the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
Yeasterday’s hearing comes a day after Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim accused an Al-Jazeera editor of helping to leak classified intelligence documents, in a separate espionage trial involving Morsi.
The Al-Jazeera trial, in which 20 defendants stand accused, has sparked an international outcry and fuelled fears of a media crackdown by the military-installed authorities.
Greste and seven co-defendants appeared in a caged dock yesterday wearing white prison uniforms, an AFP correspondent reported from the courtroom.
Eight defendants are in custody, and the rest are either on the run or abroad.
Greste and fellow journalist Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fadel Fahmy were arrested on December 29 in a Cairo hotel suite they used as a bureau after their offices were raided by police.
Fahmy is the Egypt bureau chief of Al-Jazeera English.
“After three hearings, it’s apparent that there’s no case against us. No witness has anything that incriminates us,” Fahmy told AFP, just minutes before the trial resumed.
Before the proceedings began, Greste’s brother Mike said his brother was “strong . . . but 100 days in prison must have left its effect on him”.
Prosecutors insist the journalists colluded with the Muslim Brotherhood, now designated a “terrorist” group, and falsely sought to portray Egypt in a state of “civil war”.
Defence lawyer Mokhles El-Salhy said his clients were doing their “job professionally and objectively” when they were arrested.
“They were covering violent clashes between protesters and security forces, as were all other channels. They didn’t make it up or fabricate it,” he told AFP before yesterday’s hearing opened.
Meanwhile, an Egyptian court yesterday sentenced 33 supporters of the ousted president Mohamed Morsi to six years in jail over charges of violence during unauthorised protests, State-run Ahram newspaper reported on its website.
The Islamist defendants were accused of violent acts during clashes between the backers and opponents of Morsi in the coastal city of Alexandria last December. They were also accused of assaulting security forces, belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, and joining protests without official approval, the report said.
Last November, the military-installed interim government issued a protest law that bans gathering or demonstration without prior approval. In December, the authorities declared the Brotherhood a terrorist organization.
The court also ordered the defendants to pay a fine of 50,000 Egyptian pounds (around 7,173 US dollars) each. The verdict can be appealed. — AFP/Reuters.
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