The Daily Mail said that Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste and two co-workers were denied to post bail by a Cairo court despite an international clamor to set them free. The three are among 17 others who had been accused of providing a media platform to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group of deposed former president Mohamed Morsi.
Photos obtained by the UK tabloid showed the 45 year-old Australian and 16 others dressed in head-to-toe white, and are held in cages at one side of the court as the latter hears about their cases. In a stunning departure from the usual hearing routine, judge Mohammed Nagi Shehata had allowed the defendants to approach the bench to deliver their pleas.
Greste, who was with fellow Al-Jazeera journalists Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Modhamed, told the judge that he had been in Egypt for only two weeks prior to his arrest. He added, "The idea that I could have an association with the Muslim Brotherhood is frankly preposterous. Our only desire at this point is to continue to fight and clear our names from outside of prison."
Fahmy, who holds a dual Canadian-Egyptian citizenship, is the English bureau chief of the Arab network. Daily Mail said Fahmy told the judge that he, too, has no links with the group and that if he was a Muslim terrorist, he wouldn't be an alcohol-drinking liberal who had lived abroad for a long time.
Greste's parents, including Australia, are hoping that their son's case will be dismissed and he will be further released. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott had reportedly taken up Greste's case already with Egyptian President Adly Mansour of the military-backed interim government.
The cause of alarm of Greste's group is that Egypt has already sentenced hundreds of Egyptians touted to have links to the Muslim Brotherhood to death just days before the said hearing. Moreover, the rest of Greste's group claimed that they were tortured by the Egyptian government following the arrests, Daily Mail said.
