Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste was released on Sunday and deported after 400 days in jail on charges of faked reporting and collaborating with the banned Muslim Brotherhood.The veteran television reporter was driven to Cairo Airport in the afternoon and put on a flight for Cyprus, officials told dpa.
The Qatar-based network called on Egyptian authorities to free his colleagues; Baher Mohammed and Mohammed Fahmy as well, calling Greste’s release as good news, but not enough.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi ordered Greste’s deportation under a November decree allowing him to expel foreign defendants and convicts “in the supreme national interest”.
The imprisonment of the three journalists has been condemned by human rights and media freedom groups, with Amnesty International saying no concrete evidence in support of the charges had been presented in court.
The journalists along with the three students, thought to be Muslim Brotherhood activists were convicted in June of providing material support to the Brotherhood and “producing fabricated coverage of events in Egypt.
Mohammed received an additional three-year jail term for possessing a round of ammunition.
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