Australian journalist accuses Egyptian prosecutors of unbelievable inefficiency
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Version 0 of 1. The Australian al-Jazeera journalist on trial in Egypt, Peter Greste, has accused his prosecutors of unbelievable inefficiency after they tried to prove his guilt with a collection of recordings, images and videos taken from a colleague's phone – including a recording of a well-known pop song. Greste and two colleagues from al-Jazeera English – Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohamed – were in court for the ninth session of their trial on charges of endangering Egypt's national security, aiding terrorists, and doctoring footage. In order to buttress their case on Thursday, prosecutors displayed a series of decontextualised recordings and images they said were taken from the three journalists and their five co-defendants – students whose connection to the trio has not been clarified. The footage attributed to Greste appeared to have been taken from a mobile phone belonging to Fahmy. The items included a recording of the hit song Somebody That I Used to Know, by the Australian singer-songwriter Gotye, and a BBC report by the veteran correspondent Lyse Doucet. Greste argued that their random and seemingly irrelevant nature undermined the case against the men. "The inefficiencies are just unbelievable," he shouted to reporters from the defendants' cage during a break in proceedings. "That whole cellphone that the prosecution says is mine is not mine. It's all in Arabic. I don't speak in Arabic. It has nothing to do with me. The integrity of my evidence is being corrupted and the mislabelling of that phone is the most obvious example of that." Other footage shown in court included al-Jazeera interviews with leaders from all sides of Egypt's political spectrum, and reports about Muslim Brotherhood protests, along with apolitical stories about sheep and football. After the screening of the football report, Greste interrupted proceedings to tell the judge: "We're accused of showing that the country is at war. This story shows the opposite. It's a story that shows we have no agenda." Other evidence included videos and recordings by outlets with no link to al-Jazeera, including the BBC and Voice of America. Further amateur recordings attributed to some of the co-defendants were largely inaudible, and included someone singing to himself. But in one recording, a speaker could be heard discussing the terms of his freelance employment with al-Jazeera's local Arabic channel. The presentation of the prosecution's videos was seen as a small victory for the defence lawyers, who had previously been told they would have to pay more than £100,000 for the privilege of viewing them. Their screening moves the case closer to a conclusion, though Fahmy told reporters during a recess that the trio were no longer hopeful of a swift end to the trial. He also said he had been told by a specialist doctor in prison that his broken shoulder – which has not been properly treated in jail – would require a corrective operation. A fourth al-Jazeera journalist jailed in Egypt, Abdallah Elshamy, is understood to be in far worse condition. Jailed without charge since August in a separate case, Elshamy has been on hunger strike for more than 100 days and was recently moved to solitary confinement. On Thursday, police published photographs of Elshamy holding up some food, seemingly showing that he had ended his strike. In response, his family said the images suggested he was being coerced into eating, and repeated their demands for his instant release. "The key issue remains that Abdullah is a journalist who has spent nine months in 'temporary' detention, without charge, without trial and without release," the family said in a statement. |