Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy raises an Egyptian flag at his retrial at a courthouse near Tora prison in Cairo on Thursday.Hassan Ammar/The Associated Press
Just as Mohamed Fahmy's retrial began in a Cairo courtroom on Thursday, the Egyptian foreign ministry sent a strongly worded press release that may explain why the Al Jazeera English journalist has yet to be freed.
The note concerned an Egyptian appeals court's recent decision to overturn a number of mass death sentences in another case. The foreign ministry demanded that media outlets publicize the news. "In the interest of fairness and journalistic professionalism, all of the newspapers and agencies that published screaming headlines regarding the initial verdicts are also obligated to publish headlines of their nullification," the press release read.
It was illustrative of the strategy Cairo appears to be pursuing in the Fahmy case – subjecting a widely criticized court verdict to a judicial re-do, rather than a Presidential annulment, in the hopes that a more sensible final verdict helps cast the Egyptian legal system in a better light.
For weeks, Mr. Fahmy's family and Canadian government officials believed he would be released from prison and deported from Egypt imminently. However, it now appears that the Egyptian government has decided to back away from that strategy and instead subject Mr. Fahmy to the process of the appeals court, which had ordered a retrial in his case.
It is, in many ways, a public-relations exercise on the part of Cairo, an attempt by the authoritarian government to rehabilitate the reputation of the country's judiciary after a year of sweeping, roundly criticized verdicts by showing that the Egyptian legal system is perfectly capable of fixing its own mistakes.
Ever since former president Mohammed Morsi was removed from power in a popular military coup in the summer of 2013, the Egyptian judicial system has found itself the subject of worldwide condemnation, mostly for a series of verdicts in which hundreds of people (many of them accused Islamists) were sentenced to execution or life in prison. The sentences were seen by many as a means for the judiciary, where many loyalists of former dictator Hosni Mubarak still wield power, to enact revenge against the factions that originally drove Mr. Mubarak out of power.
For almost a year, current Egyptian leader Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi resisted interfering in the cases. However, the trial of Mr. Fahmy, and his Al Jazeera colleagues Peter Greste and Baher Mohamed, appears to have finally changed his mind. International condemnation not only threatened to sour Cairo's relations with the governments of Australia and Canada (where Mr. Greste and Mr. Fahmy, respectively, hold citizenship), but also neighbouring Qatar, where Al Jazeera is based.
As such, when Mr. Greste was freed two weeks ago, most assumed Mr. Fahmy would be next. However, last weekend, it appeared Cairo had once again reassessed the situation and decided that the optics of an independent judicial system were more important than the international goodwill that could be generated by freeing Mr. Fahmy.
The clearest signs Cairo had once again changed its position on the Fahmy case came during an interview this week between President el-Sissi and the German news outlet Der Spiegel. Asked about the case, the Egyptian leader left the door open that he may issue a general amnesty, but also made clear his preference the case be settled in court.
"Firstly, if I had been in office at the time [the original charges were filed], I would have wanted no further problems and would have asked them to leave the country," he said. "Secondly: Our judiciary is independent. It is important that the Western world does not see itself as the only one with an independent judiciary."
President el-Sissi may have become more emboldened this week to hold off on deporting Mr. Fahmy after a written statement from an Egyptian appeals court found myriad flaws with the Al Jazeera journalists' original trial. In its appraisal, the appeals court cited numerous infractions, including a rush to judgment and the court's insufficient efforts to discover whether the accused had given testimony under physical or emotional duress. The appeal court's condemnation of the original trial strongly indicates the retrial may well conclude in a very different fashion. Another optimistic sign came on Thursday, when the appeals court agreed to release Mr. Fahmy and Mr. Mohamed on bail.
However that still leaves Mr. Fahmy – who just a few days ago believed his more than 400 days in detention were coming to an end – facing the prospect of another prolonged trial. Ottawa has already called that outcome unacceptable, and once again called on President el-Sissi to free Mr. Fahmy. However, given the number of times Cairo has changed its mind in recent weeks, any assurance of his imminent freedom is likely to be taken with a grain of salt.
"[El-Sissi] wants to show that he leaves these matters to the judiciary," said Nezar AlSayyad, a professor and former chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Berkeley. "When in reality he has a judiciary that is so eager to please him."