Freed journalist has ‘real mix of emotions’
Egypt still holding two fellow reporters
CAIRO – Al-Jazeera journalist Peter Greste expressed “relief and excitement” Monday at being freed after more than a year in an Egyptian prison, but also said he felt real stress over leaving his two jailed colleagues behind.
His first public comments came as a court in Egypt sentenced 183 people to death in the violence following the 2013 ouster of former President Mohammed Morsi in the latest in a series of harsh punishments that have drawn condemnation at home and abroad.
Greste, an Australian, told Al-Jazeera English he experienced a “real mix of emotions” when he was freed Sunday because fellow journalists Mohamed Fahmy, an Egyptian Canadian, and Baher Mohammed, an Egyptian, remained imprisoned on terrorism charges and for spreading false information. The three were arrested in December 2013 and received sentences of seven to 10 years before their convictions were overturned on appeal. A retrial began Jan. 1.
Later Monday, Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird said Fahmy’s release was imminent but provided no time frame. Fahmy’s family said authorities required that he give up his Egyptian citizenship as a condition for his release.
Authorities presented no concrete evidence to back the charges against them. The journalists insisted they were doing their jobs and are widely seen as having been caught up in a quarrel between Egypt and Qatar, which funds Al-Jazeera and was a strong backer of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood.
“It was a very difficult moment walking out of that prison, saying goodbye to the guys, not knowing how much longer they all have to put up with this,” the 49-year-old Greste said.
He also spoke of how he spent his 400 days of incarceration.
“The key is to stay fit physically, mentally and spiritually,” he said, explaining that he followed a workout regimen, running in a limited space, but also studied and meditated.
Judge Mohammed Nagi Shehata, who convicted the Al-Jazeera journalists, is the same one who sentenced the 183 Egyptians to death.
That case involved the ransacking of a police station in a village just outside Cairo and the torture and killing of 15 policemen and mutilation of some of their bodies. It was believed to be a revenge attack by Morsi loyalists for the government’s crackdown on the Brotherhood.