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. They 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.
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The military ousted Morsi in July 2013 after a year in office amid huge protests of his rule. His supporters staged two large public sit-ins in Cairo, which were broken up by police on Aug. 14, 2013, with hundreds killed. The attack on the police station in the village of Kerdassah began a few hours after the pro-Morsi sites were cleared.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been declared a terrorist organization by the Egyptian government.
Morsi faces multiple trials on charges that include conspiring with foreign groups and authorizing the killing of protesters. He is scheduled to begin a new trial Feb. 15 on charges connected to leaking classified national security documents to a foreign country.
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Associated Press reporters Maggie Michael in Cairo, Bradley Klapper in Washington and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
