On June 23, 2014, a Cairo criminal court convicted Fahmy, the Cairo bureau chief of Al-Jazeera English, Al-Jazeera correspondent Peter Greste, and Baher Mohamed, an Egyptian producer for Al-Jazeera, on charges of “distorting the country’s image abroad” and “fabricating news to aid the Muslim Brotherhood,” which the government has declared a terrorist organization, according to news reports. Fahmy and Greste were sentenced to seven years in prison. Mohamed was handed a 10-year prison term on those charges, with an additional three years on a separate charge of possessing ammunition, according to news reports.
The three were arrested on December 29, 2013, at the Marriott hotel in the Zamalek neighborhood of Cairo. During the trial, prosecutors aired footage that was unrelated to Egypt, according to news reports. Photographs of a Sky Arabia report on animal cruelty and footage of a Nairobi news conference were shown, purporting to be evidence, the reports said.
Fahmy, an Egyptian-Canadian journalist, had previously reported for other news outlets including CNN and The New York Times, according to news reports. Prior to working for Al-Jazeera, Greste, an Australian journalist, had worked for a number of other news outlets, including Reuters and the BBC, news reports said. Mohamed had worked for other news outlets, including Japan’s Asahi Shimbun, CNN, and Iran’s Press TV, before he joined Al-Jazeera in 2013, news reports said.
On August 21, 2014, the journalists’ lawyers appealed their convictions, according to news reports. The date for the appeals had not been set in late 2014.
Fahmy, Greste, and Mohamed are being held in Tora prison.