The Al-Jazeera journalists on trial in Egypt say they have been left in “unprecedented legal limbo” after the key witnesses for their prosecution failed to turn up for cross-examination at their hearing in Cairo.
Members of Egypt’s security services were due to be questioned on Sunday by defence lawyers over their claims that the Al-Jazeera English journalists had conspired with terrorists to falsify news reports. But for the second hearing in a row, the witnesses failed to attend court, to the fury of both the defendants and the judge, Hassan Farid.
“It’s mind-boggling,” said Mohamed Fahmy, AJE’s Canadian-Egyptian bureau chief, after the judge was forced to adjourn the case for another 10 days. “We look forward to the court date and [instead] you come here and it’s unprecedented legal limbo.”
Farid fined two of the absent witnesses 500 Egyptian pounds (around £45) each, and said they would be arrested if they failed to attend a third time. “This isn’t a joke, it’s a court,” Farid shouted. “Why don’t they show up? I will bring all eight [prosecution witnesses] next session even if I have to arrest them.”
The witnesses have given testimony in court before – but only in an earlier trial, which ended last June with the defendants jailed for several years on trumped-up terrorism charges. That verdict was overturned on appeal in January, leading to this year’s ongoing retrial. In their 2013 appearances, some of the witnesses ended up contradicting the written testimonies they gave to prosecutors in private.
Their absence is the latest in a long series of setbacks for Fahmy and his Egyptian colleague, Baher Mohamed. The pair were first arrested in December 2013, along with their Australian co-defendant, Peter Greste. All three of them had their convictions overturned on appeal in January 2015, and a month later Greste was allowed to return to Australia.
But Mohamed and Fahmy were only released on bail, pending a retrial. The double-standard was especially frustrating for Fahmy, who had renounced his Egyptian citizenship after being wrongly advised by Egyptian officials that the decision would allow him to leave for Canada.
Due to complications caused by their incarceration, both Fahmy and Mohamed no longer have valid identification papers, meaning that their movements are very restricted – and their main hope of leaving this limbo is through the speedy conclusion of their retrial. Fahmy’s situation is particularly complex because Canadian officials have not replaced his lost Canadian passport, which severely limits where he can go, and what he can pay for in Egypt.
His fiancee, Marwa Omara, said: “We can’t get married, we can’t rent a flat, and every time we’re walking in the street we’re scared that we’ll be stopped at a checkpoint.”
Additional reporting: Manu Abdo
