Won't pardon 3 journalists, el-Sissi says in Egypt speech

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is saluted by a female cadet at a military graduation in Cairo on Tuesday. El-Sissi said Tuesday that he will not interfere in court rulings.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is saluted by a female cadet at a military graduation in Cairo on Tuesday. El-Sissi said Tuesday that he will not interfere in court rulings.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

CAIRO -- Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on Tuesday rejected calls from the United States and other Western governments that he pardon or commute the sentences of three Al-Jazeera journalists who were handed heavy prison terms a day earlier.

In a nationally televised speech to graduating military cadets Tuesday, el-Sissi said he would not interfere in court rulings or the judicial process.

Egypt has accused the Al-Jazeera network of being a mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood and other supporters of Mohammed Morsi, the Islamist president whom el-Sissi ousted last summer.

The Al-Jazeera journalists' December arrest was part of a broad crackdown against Islamists in which hundreds have been killed and thousands arrested. The journalists say they are being prosecuted for simply doing their job.

El-Sissi's powerful Persian Gulf allies, particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are strongly opposed to both the Brotherhood and Al-Jazeera. Those allies have given Egypt billions of dollars in aid since Morsi's ouster. Egypt also is targeting the Gulf nation of Qatar, which was a close ally of Morsi and owns Al-Jazeera.

The verdict sends a message to the media against reporting on Islamists and others who have spoken out against the government crackdown on the Brotherhood. Al-Jazeera, particularly its Arabic service, was nearly the only locally based network that provided a platform for Islamists and the opponents of the regime.

The three journalists -- Australian Peter Greste, Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohammed -- contended throughout their trial that they were pawns in the Egypt-Qatar enmity. They were charged with helping the Brotherhood, which Egypt's government has declared a terrorist group, and with falsifying their coverage of protests by Morsi supporters to damage Egypt's security.

A Cairo criminal court on Monday sentenced Greste and Fahmy to seven years in prison and Mohammed to 10 years. Rights groups described their five-month trial as a sham, with no evidence presented to back the charges.

The White House said the ruling "flouts the most basic standards of media freedom" and was a "blow to democratic progress." It called on el-Sissi to intervene to bring about their immediate release. Australia and other governments made similar calls.

The families of Greste and Fahmy said Tuesday that they are still considering their next move. Greste's brother, Mike Greste, said the families will appeal but are still studying how to proceed, adding they want to make "full use of legal avenues."

Mike Greste said he visited his brother in jail Tuesday and found him "strong."

"He wanted to assure us that he is determined to continue the fight for his freedom and pick himself up," he said.

Fahmy's family members also visited him in prison and said they were working to get hospital treatment for his shoulder, which was injured before his arrest but worsened into a permanent disability because of neglect in prison.

In his speech Tuesday, el-Sissi said that to ensure strong institutions, "we must respect court rulings and not comment on them, even if others don't understand these rulings.

"We will not interfere in court verdicts" he said. He added that he spoke to the justice minister, and "I told him one word: We will not interfere in judicial matters because the Egyptian judiciary is an independent and exalted judiciary."

Under the constitution, the president has the power to issue a pardon or commute the sentences.

El-Sissi's comments do not rule out a pardon later after appeal, said Sayed Abu Zayed, a lawyer for the Press Syndicate who attended the trial in solidarity with the journalists. A pardon now, before appeal, "would be considered interference," he said. "Talking about pardon comes only after they have exhausted all avenues of litigation."

But other lawyers said el-Sissi could issue a pardon now without appearing to interfere in the courts, because initial verdicts in criminal courts immediately go into effect. The appeal is a separate process before one of Egypt's highest courts, the Cassation Court, which reviews only whether procedural flaws were committed and can order a retrial.

Ahmed Raghab, a rights lawyer, said el-Sissi was addressing his home audience. "He has presented himself as a powerful leader who is here to fix matters, and succumbing to pressure would shake that image," he said. "But I don't think this is over yet."

Raghab said the real target of this trial is the media, and the animosity with Qatar is used as a cover. "The government didn't shut down the Qatar Embassy," he said. "The real victims are journalists and freedom of the press."

Qatari officials have not commented on the verdict.

Information for this article was contributed by Adam Schreck of The Associated Press.

A Section on 06/25/2014