By Barry Ellsworth
TRENTON, Ontario
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird flew to Cairo on Tuesday to once again press for the release of jailed Egyptian-Canadian Al-Jazeera journalist Mohamed Fahmy.
Other issues will be on the table, including security and ISIL, but Baird, who will meet with Egyptian officials, will not meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi until Thursday, Canadian media reported.
Egypt sparked global outrage when Fahmy and fellow Al-Jazeera journalists Peter Greste and Baher Mohammed were sentenced to seven years for “falsifying news” and belonging to or assisting the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
Baird has been working for months behind the diplomatic scenes to try get Fahmy released, the Canadian Broadcastings Corporation reported.
And it looks like the efforts will pay off – Marwa Omara, Fahmy’s fiancé, told the Canadian Press that Egypt was preparing Fahmy’s deportation order and it was “in its final stages.”
An Egyptian law passed last November allows foreign convicts or suspects to be sent back to their home countries to be tried or to serve out their sentences.
The three journalists were arrested in December 2013.
An Egyptian court on Jan. 1 overturned their initial seven- to 10-year sentences and granted the trio a retrial. No bail was granted, however, nor has there been a new trial date set.
Canada has not been alone in pressing for the joournalists' release.
After the men were sentenced in June, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry issued a statement in which he condemned “draconian sentences.” The rulings came a day after Kerry had met with the Egyptian president.
“Yesterday, president al-Sisi and I frankly discussed these issues and his objectives at the start of his term as president,” Kerry said. “I call on him to make clear, publicly, his government’s intention to observe Egypt’s commitment to the essential role of civil society, a free press and the rule of law,” he added.
