Doha: Al Jazeera English Acting Managing Director Giles Trendle has described as “very frustrating” the ordeal of its journalists Baher Mohamed, Mohamed Fahmy and Peter Greste after a Cairo court again adjourned their retrial.
After the case was postponed to August 29, Trendle said: “This is very frustrating. This long running saga has been going on and on and on.
“If we go back to the original verdict, it was quashed by a court of appeals that said the evidence was contradictory and flawed and this was earlier this year. So we are just waiting for justice to be done. At the moment, justice is delayed and justice delayed is not justice done,” he added.
Trendle criticised the process saying, “The judicial system has been almost Kafkaesque in some of the ludicrous groundless charges, in some of the strange decisions, even in the delays that you are seeing. The adjournment, I believe this is the 10th one in recent times. We can make calls, we can make campaigns but at the end of the day the decision lies in Cairo, in the court in Cairo.”
The #FreeAJStaff campaign is now in 19th month since the trio were arrested in December 2013 .
Since then, there has been a groundswell of support on social media from media organisations and human right groups.
Trendle urged people to continue with ‘Journalism is not a crime’ calls and said: “There has been a tremendous campaign and we thank everybody who has been behind it, world leaders, international media, human rights organisations, the general public as well as our staff. The campaign will go on until we get justice for our people.” The Peninsula
