A Cairo court has set an appeal hearing date for Australian journalist Peter Greste and two Al-Jazeera English colleagues convicted of terrorism-related charges amid widespread international condemnation.
Adel Fahmy, the brother of Mohammed Fahmy, acting Cairo bureau chief for Al-Jazeera English, said on Tuesday that the scheduled court date is January 1 next year.
He said the date was further away than his family had hoped for but the mere fact that it had been scheduled was a relief.
Lawyer Negad Borai, who is representing Mohammed Fahmy, said he expects the Court of Cassation to take one or two sessions to either send the case back to criminal court or uphold the original verdict.
Well-known international barrister Amal Clooney, who recently married Hollywood star George Clooney, has also joined Fahmy's defence team.
The three journalists - Greste, Fahmy, and Egyptian producer Baher Mohammed - were convicted last June on charges linked to aiding the Muslim Brotherhood, which the government has declared a terrorist organisation the ousting of President Mohammed Morsi.
Mohammed faces 10 years in prison while Greste and Fahmy received seven-year sentences each. The journalists have repeatedly said they are being punished for just doing their jobs.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi told a group of local journalists on Tuesday he was unable to issue a presidential pardon to the imprisoned journalists until after a final verdict.
Fahmy's brother Adel said the family had been hoping for such a pardon.
In an apparent reference to the Al-Jazeera case, el-Sissi said he thinks the ideal way to deal with transgressions by foreign journalists would be to deport them, according to a presidential spokesman.
The guilty verdicts ignited a firestorm of international condemnation and raised concerns about the state of freedom of expression in Egypt.
Amnesty International called the trial a "farcical spectacle" and a "ferocious attack on media freedom."
In a recent opinion piece in The Huffington Post, Amal Clooney said "it is ironic that the main charge against the Al-Jazeera journalists is that they sought to tarnish Egypt's image - there is little that could tarnish it more than allowing such injustices to persist."
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