CAIRO
An Egyptian court on Sunday set Feb.12 for the retrial of journalists from the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera news network, who have been sentenced to prison on charges of abetting terrorists and broadcasting false news.
In January, the court accepted an appeal by seven people involved in the case, a judicial source said.
He added that 11 other people involved in the same case were still at large.
In June of 2014, three journalists – Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fahmy, Australian Peter Greste and Egyptian Baher Mohamed – were handed jail sentences, ranging between seven and ten years after being convicted of broadcasting false news and threatening Egypt's national security.
Greste and Fahmi were both sentenced to seven years behind bars, while Mohamed was sentenced to ten years.
Three other foreign Al Jazeera correspondents – two Britons and one Dutch national – were sentenced in absentia to ten years each.
Last week, Greste was deported to Australia upon an order by the Egyptian President who acted in the light of a 2014 law that gave him the right to order the deportation of foreign nationals convicted of committing crimes in Egypt.
Fahmi and Mohamed had been detained by authorities since they were arrested in December of 2013 at a hotel in Cairo and had their equipment confiscated.
The raid came days after the government declared the Muslim Brotherhood – the group from which ousted President Mohamed Morsi hails – a "terrorist" group, ratcheting up an already harsh crackdown on Morsi's supporters.
A group of western governments had called for the release of Greste and Fahmi amid an international solidarity campaign launched by Al Jazeera to press for the release of its journalists.
The Egyptian government had repeatedly accused Al Jazeera of bias in favor of Morsi – which the channel denies – amid tensions with the Qatari government over Doha's criticism of Morsi's ouster.
