Basic journalism not a crime, Fahmy’s defence argues
Canadian being held in Egypt admits hostilities with former employer Al Jazeera English
Defence lawyers for Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy refuted charges of spreading false news and belonging to a terrorist organization as they delivered their closing arguments in a Cairo courtroom on Thursday.
Fahmy’s attorney, Khaled Abu Bakr, argued his client was on trial for nothing more than basic journalism.
“A journalist’s job is to speak to different people, regardless of whether they are for or against the government,” Abu Bakr told the judge. “Journalists record history, they don’t bear responsibility for what is said.”
Fahmy and his colleagues Baher Mohamed and Peter Greste were arrested by Egyptian authorities in December 2013 and sentenced to between seven and 10 years in prison on terror-related charges. They spent more than 400 days behind bars before successfully appealing their conviction and being released on bail on the first day of a retrial in February.
Greste was deported to his native Australia before the proceedings began.
At the start of Thursday’s session, Fahmy and Mohamed were brought out of the defendant’s cage and onto the courtroom floor, where they stood, flanked by police officers, for the duration of the proceedings.
Abu Bakr gave a sketch of Fahmy’s background, where he grew up, his education in Canada and his previous employers, including CNN, pointing out that he worked at Al Jazeera for less than 90 days before his arrest.
He stressed there wasn’t a single shred of evidence tying Fahmy to the Muslim Brotherhood — designated a terrorist organization by the Egyptian government — and quoted his comments to the prosecutor during interrogation where he called the Islamist group a “terrorist gang” and praised the protests against former president Mohammed Morsi.
The Al Jazeera journalists have been dubbed “The Marriott Cell” by the local media, named after the hotel where they worked when they were arrested. Authorities charged them with operating secretly from there to broadcast fabricated reports that harmed national security.
Abu Bakr argued if they wanted to conduct terrorist activities they would have rented an apartment rather than booked rooms in a luxury hotel.
“This journalist was jailed for more than 400 days because of a lack of understanding of the nature of his profession,” Abu Bakr said in his closing remarks before Fahmy took the microphone and addressed the court himself. Fahmy told the judge that he has been attacking Al Jazeera in the foreign press — including a recent opinion piece in the New York Times titled “How Qatar Used and Abused its Al Jazeera journalists” — and that he filed suit against his former employer because of its alleged negligence in obtaining the proper licences to broadcast out of Egypt despite his repeated requests to management.
“There is enmity between me and Al Jazeera,” Fahmy told the court. “I will battle them about this licensing issue because they destroyed my family. I paid the price.”
The trial was adjourned to June 11 when defence attorneys for the other accused will deliver their closing arguments.