Al Jazeera waits on verdict for jailed journalists

Al Jazeera's jailed journalists, Peter Greste, Baher Mohamed and Mohammed Fahmy will wait until June 23rd for the announcement of the verdict in their case.

 

In a final plea from defence lawyers, the court was reminded that this "trial is not a trial for these defendants alone – but a trial of all journalists.”

 

Al Jazeera's Mohammed Fahmy, who was allowed to address the judge before the case was adjourned, also said: "This case is a political case."

 

An Al Jazeera spokesman said:

 

“Today was the final summation by the defence, again the weaknesses of the prosecution case has been exposed. On the balance of arguments, Al Jazeera hopes the judge will take into consideration the facts presented to him and acquit Peter, Baher and Mohammed of any wrong doing. On June 23rd, the entire world will be watching Egypt to see whether they uphold the values of press freedom”.

 

Previous court dates have bizarrely included the prosecution showing footage of Sky News Arabia tourism reports, BBC podcasts, songs by Gotye, photoshopped images of Mohammed Fahmy, Peter Greste’s family photos, and some of Greste’s award-winning work from East Africa.

 

The fourth detained Al Jazeera journalist, Abdullah Elshamy, is held separately, and has been detained without charge for nearly ten months.

 

Calls for the release of the Al Jazeera staff have been made from the White House, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the European Union. Similarly public calls of support for the #FreeAJStaff campaign have been made from prominent media personalities with over 60,000 people supporting the #FreeAJStaff campaign which has had over 1.2 billion impressions on Twitter. Various media freedom and human rights groups have also issued statements ranging from the Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Press Institute, Amnesty International and The Foreign Correspondents Association of East Africa.