Greste sweats on Egypt court ruling

Australian journalist Peter Greste hopes he and his Al Jazeera colleagues will be cleared once and for all on Saturday of terror-related charges in Egypt.

Peter Greste

Peter Greste Source: AAP

It's been one year and eight months since Peter Greste was arrested in Egypt and accused of being a supporter of terrorism.

On Saturday, the Australian journalist should learn, once and for all, if that tag will plague him for the rest of his life.

After a month of delays, a Cairo court is due to deliver its verdict in the retrial of Mr Greste and two of his Al Jazeera colleagues.

The men were arrested in December 2013, a few months after the military overthrew the government of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

They'd gone to Egypt to cover the turmoil that followed the coup.

But in the course of doing their job, the newsmen say, they found themselves accused of being partisan players intent on supporting Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, which had been branded a terrorist organisation by the new regime.

In 2014, the men were tried, convicted and handed lengthy jail terms for spreading false news and backing a terrorist group.

All three spent more than a year in jail before Egypt's highest court ordered a retrial, citing concerns about the integrity of their original trial.

Despite the looming retrial, Mr Greste was deported in February this year, on the orders of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the one-time army chief who toppled Morsi.

His colleagues, Baher Mohamed and Mohamed Fahmy, were later freed on bail, but have had to remain in Egypt.

Mr Greste has been forced to follow his own retrial from his homeland unable to return to defend himself without violating the president's deportation order.

He has always struggled with the fact that he is home and, unlike his colleagues, at no risk of being returned to jail if the retrial results in guilty verdicts.

The real risk to Mr Greste is to his career as a foreign correspondent. A terrorism conviction would prevent him from working in countries with extradition arrangements with Egypt.

The Australian won't hazard a guess on the verdict, assuming it comes on Saturday. It's been delayed twice in the past month.

"All I can say is that no new evidence has been presented to give any reason to think we are guilty of the allegations," he told AAP on Friday.

"The only logical, legal and ethical decision they can come to is full acquittals for all."


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Source: AAP


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