Two Al Jazeera journalists are back in a court in the Egyptian
capital as their retrial over alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood is
set to resume.
The Court of Cassation ordered the retrial of Mohamed Fahmy and Baher
Mohamed after overturning a lower court's verdict which found them
guilty of aiding the outlawed group.
A third Al Jazeera journalist, Peter Greste, who was also to be
retried, was deported on February 1 under a presidential decree after
languishing in jail for 400 days. He has since returned to his home in
Australia.
Fahmy and Mohamed were released on bail on February 13 after spending 411 days in prison.
Giving its reasoning for overturning the lower court's ruling, the
Court of Cassation said the "criminal court's verdict lacked evidence to
support its ruling" and "was hasty in pronouncing its verdict".
It said the first case failed to prove how the journalists had joined
the Brotherhood, and failed to prove that an act of "terrorism"
actually occurred.
The lower court also "did not wait for medical and legal reports
which it had requested after several defendants spoke of being under
physical and moral pressure" to make confessions, the appeals court
said.
No comments:
Post a Comment