Egypt’s president yesterday pardoned Al-Jazeera’s jailed Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy and his colleague Baher Mohamed, who were sentenced last month to three years in prison, the presidency said.
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It is still not clear if another seven Al Jazeera journalists, including Australian Peter Greste, who were sentenced in absentia, were included in the pardoned group.
The pardon came a day before Mr el-Sissi was to travel to New York to attend the UN General Assembly.
Fahmy’s lawyer, Khaled Abu Bakr, confirmed the pardon and said his client is a “professional and innocent journalist”. Authorities arrested Fahmy, Greste and Mohamed, later charging them with allegedly being part of the Muslim Brotherhood, and airing falsified footage meant to damage national security.
Fahmy and Mohammed, who both worked for Al-Jazeera English, were serving three-year sentences.
Once he leaves Egypt, Fahmy has said he plans to take up a position as an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia’s school of journalism in Vancouver. Executive Malcolm Turnbull addresses him and pledged to press Egypt for an exoneration for him and his partners, as indicated by Turnbull’s Facebook page.
The pair were freed along with nearly 100 other prisoners pardoned by the president.
The case started in December 2013, when Egyptian security powers struck the inn suite utilized by Al-Jazeera at an ideal opportunity to report from Egypt.
In February, Fahmy renounced his Egyptian citizenship and kept his Canadian one, paving the way for his deportation. Earlier this year, an appeals court ordered a retrial, stating that the initial verdict was made on little evidence. Among them is freelance photographer Mahmoud Abou Zeid, also known as Shawkan, whose detention since August 2013 has exceeded the two-year legal limit on pretrial detention, according to his lawyer.
Human rights organizations and press freedom groups had called for the release of the journalists.
Amnesty global and other observers have long held that Fahmy, Mohamed and Greste were pawns in a geopolitical dispute between Egypt and Qatar, the small Middle Eastern country that finances Al Jazeera.
Of the three only one was Egyptian (Baher Mohamed).
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Two British journalists, Sue Turton and Dominic Kane, have previously been tried in their absence, and found guilty.
