Jazeera journalists freed

CAIRO: An Egyptian court ordered the release of two jailed Al-Jazeera journalists on Thursday pending retrial, after they spent more than 400 days in prison in a case that sparked worldwide outrage.
Mohammed Fahmy, who is Canadian and whose family hoped he would be deported, must pay 250,000 Egyptian pounds bail while his colleague, Egyptian Baher Mohammed, was freed on his own recognisance along with other defendants.
The case was adjourned until February 23, the court said.
Fahmy and Mohammed appeared in white prison uniforms before the Cairo court, after Australian colleague Peter Greste was deported home earlier this month.
The three were accused of supporting the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood and originally jailed for between seven and 10 years each.
The case has been a major source of embarrassment for President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as he seeks to shore up international support following a widely condemned crackdown on the opposition.
Fahmy had renounced his Egyptian citizenship to benefit from a law that allows the deportation of foreign defendants and which led to Greste’s release.
On Thursday’s first session of their retrial, Fahmy’s defence asked the court to free him.
Fahmy himself was then allowed out of the caged dock to address the judge.
“I didn’t ask to drop my Egyptian nationality,” he said, his arm in a blue sling from an accident he had suffered before his arrest in December 2013.