Canadian journalist’s fate in Egypt remains uncertain
Mohamed Fahmy says he’s trying to ‘mentally prepare’ for spotlight when freed
Canadian-Egyptian journalist Mohamed Fahmy was still behind bars Tuesday, two days after Australian Al Jazeera colleague Peter Greste was freed from a grim Cairo jail.
But as Greste touched down in Australia, and the clock ticked toward Fahmy’s highly anticipated release, his fate was still in the balance.
“It does look like it’s really imminent,” his British Al Jazeera colleague Sue Turton told the Star. “I know we’ve been saying that for the last 24 hours.”
Turton, who was sentenced to 10 years in absentia along with Fahmy, Greste and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed, has been communicating with Fahmy during his nearly 14 months of detention on widely decried terrorism-related charges.
He and Greste were sentenced to seven years and Mohamed to 10 years, while Turton left the country before she could be arrested.
Before his surprise resignation Tuesday, Foreign Minister John Baird had been pushing for Fahmy’s deportation, made possible by a law passed by President Abdel-Fattah elSissi to allow convicted foreigners to be returned to their home countries. Baird visited Egypt to help secure Fahmy’s release, and on the weekend talked by phone to Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.
That followed a decision by Egypt’s top court to declare a retrial of the three journalists, clearing the way for deportation. Fahmy reluctantly renounced his Egyptian citizenship to clear the last bureaucratic hurdle. Or so he and his supporters hoped. But in Egypt the justice system is unpredictable at best.
“There are a lot of different interests at stake,” said Michele Dunne of the Carnegie Endowment’s Middle East program.
“Clearly, the Al Jazeera case came out of the security apparatus and it can be very vindictive, as we saw from the outrageous case that was presented against the journalists.”
The uncertainty over Fahmy’s release is not unusual in Egypt.
A jailed Canadian resident, Khaled Al-Qazzaz, a former aide of deposed president Mohammed Morsi, was released after more than 500 days without charge in deplorable conditions that left him in need of urgent surgery. But guards still barred him from leaving the Cairo clinic where he had been moved for medical attention while in jail. Now freed, he is still awaiting the paperwork that would allow his return to Canada.
In 2013, Canadians Tarek Loubani and John Greyson, also held without charge, were released from jail in the middle of the night after seven weeks of detention. But when they reached the airport they were turned away and told that an investigation against them was still open. After an international outcry, they were allowed to return to Canada.
Fahmy’s fate is still unclear. Ill with hepatitis C and hospitalized for a shoulder injury, he told Turton that he was a “little apprehensive” about the attention his case has received, and was trying to “mentally prepare” for the spotlight when he is released.
Meanwhile, Egypt is grappling with serious unrest and global pressure to finalize the Al Jazeera case.
Terrorist attacks have claimed at least 50 lives. On Tuesday, a roadside bomb near Alexandria killed a civilian and two bombs were defused by Cairo’s International Airport. Amnesty International accused authorities of covering up evidence in the deaths of more than two dozen people during rallies in the past week.