Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo, April 23, 2015. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah DalshAmr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters
The pardoning of Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi must be almost as great a relief to the Egyptian leader as it is to the Fahmy family.
Read: The Fahmy saga: 10 key twists in his legal nightmare in Egypt
"Pretty well from the start [el-Sissi] has made it clear he was unhappy about the arrests [of three Al Jazeera journalists by security forces in 2013] since it held Egypt up to international ridicule," said Hisham Kassem, former newspaper publisher and human-rights activist.
However, once the arrest had been made, he had to allow the judicial process to run its course. "Egyptians don't appreciate special treatment being given to foreigners," Mr. Kassem said.
Few will criticize Mr. el-Sissi for stepping in now.
The treatment Mr. Fahmy received the past two years, much of it in Egypt's notorious Tora prison, has undoubtedly served as a deterrent to others and there would be little benefit from holding him further. The defendant himself acknowledged its effectiveness.
His incarceration "sent a clear message to my fellow reporters to toe the government's line," Mr. Fahmy wrote in a Globe and Mail commentary in March.
But continuing the case at this point would benefit Al Jazeera more than it would Egypt, Mr. Kassem points out.
The news channel already "got a lot of free publicity," he said, with many people simply seeing the news channel as defending press freedom.
However, "anyone who has dealt with Al Jazeera in Egypt knows they manipulate their stories to suit their owner's interests," said Mr. Kassem, the founding publisher of Al-Masry Al-Youm, Egypt's only independent newspaper.
Indeed, one of the benefits for Egypt in this drawn-out affair was that Mr. Fahmy ultimately announced in May he was suing his former employer for using him in a political battle between Egypt and Qatar, whose royal family owns Al Jazeera.
Mr. Fahmy's statement of claim, filed in a British Columbia court, alleged Al Jazeera used its Egypt-focused Arabic channel, known as Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr, as "a thinly veiled mouthpiece" to promote propaganda of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Al Jazeera owners "don't seem to understand that they cannot continue to challenge the sovereignty of governments, put the story ahead of the safety of their employees and assume that they will continue to get away with it," Mr. Fahmy said when he announced the lawsuit in Cairo.
The case of the "Marriott cell," as it is known – named for the hotel in which the three Al Jazeera journalists worked in relative seclusion – came amidst a much broader crackdown on press freedom in Egypt.
In the past few months, it has been reported that several newspapers have been prevented from going to print until they removed content critical of President el-Sissi and as many as 20 journalists have been arrested, most charged with being members of the outlawed Muslim Brothers.
Last month, a sweeping new anti-terrorism law was passed that will make it difficult, if not impossible, for journalists to avoid accepting the government narrative – without criticism – in any "terrorist" case.
Dropping the case against the "Marriott cell" at this point will likely lift some of the scrutiny under which the country is operating.
As Mr. Kassem also noted President el-Sissi is heading Thursday to New York where he will address the United Nations General Assembly next week.
"If he hadn't pardoned Fahmy, every world leader would have raised the issue with him," he said.