CAIRO — An appeals court in Cairo on Thursday ordered a retrial for three Al Jazeera English journalists imprisoned on charges of aiding a terrorist group — accusations they strenuously deny.
Egypt’s Court of Cassation issued its ruling Thursday morning in a minutes-long session that was closed to the media. The three defendants — Australian Peter Greste, Egyptian Baher Mohamed and Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fahmy — also did not attend the hearing.
The judge did not grant bail to the three journalists, who have been incarcerated since their arrest in nighttime raids in December 2013.
“I was hoping they would be released on bail,” said Jihan Rashed, Baher Mohamed’s wife. “But I don’t feel anything. I’m not sad. I can’t feel optimistic. Life has stopped.”
The employees for the Qatar-based Al Jazeera English network, the sister channel of Al Jazeera Arabic, were convicted by a Cairo criminal court last year. A judge sentenced them to between seven and 10 years for collaborating with the Muslim Brotherhood to threaten the country’s national security.
Rights groups denounced the trial as flawed and politically motivated. Egypt’s government, brought to power by a military coup against the Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in 2013, had accused Qatar of backing the Muslim Brotherhood group that supported Morsi’s presidency.
Egyptian officials charged that Al Jazeera worked as a mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, doctoring reports to portray the country as mired in civil war.
The reasons behind the judgment Thursday remained unclear. The Court of Cassation rules only on procedural violations. Egyptian legal experts said a new trial in criminal court could take up to a month to begin.
