Egyptian authorities have set February 12 as the start date of a retrial for two jailed Al Jazeera journalists, the lawyer for one of the defendants said on Sunday.
“The session has been set for February 12, 2015. It is the new session for the retrial,” said Mostafa Nagy, lawyer for Egyptian journalist Baher Mohamed.
Mohamed, along with Australian Peter Greste and Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy were sentenced last year to between seven and 10 years in jail on charges including spreading lies to help a terrorist organisation — a reference to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
Greste was freed last Sunday and deported after 400 days in a Cairo prison. Egyptian security officials had said Fahmy could be released soon and deported to Canada, but his fiancee on Sunday told Reuters she had no information about his possible release. Egyptian authorities accuse Qatar-based Al Jazeera of being a mouthpiece of the Brotherhood — the movement the army removed from power in 2013. Al Jazeera denies the allegations.
The journalists were detained in December 2013. They say they were doing their jobs. Their imprisonment reinforced the view of human rights groups that the government was rolling back freedoms gained after the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
Baher Mohamed was given an extra three years for possessing a single bullet.
