the furthest second to the sixth defend and in abstentia, the court has ruled for mohamed mahmoud, mohamed [indiscernible] three years imprisonment for the charges, six months imprisonment and 5,000 pounds fine.

[indiscernible] been acquitted by the court and they have to pay the expenses. and the sixth and the eighth have confiscated their equipment. thank you. thrown its weight behind the protest movement and has millions of supporters just in baghdad called on them to join this rally and he is throwing

his weight behind the prime minister abadi who promised reforms but he faces a lot of challenges. >> going through the details, there were a number of other trials taking place. it wasn't just the three al jazeera journalists standing trial. mohamed fahmi was sentenced to three years. peter was also sentenced to three years and mohamed was also sentenced to three years with an additional, i need to clarify this, i understand there was an additional six months and possibly a fine on to top of tht as well. so that's the verdict that has come out of the trial. the retrial that's been taking place in cairo. the three al jazeera journalists. next, what we are going to do is speak to, well, let's just go

back to the judge in the retrial of those three al jazeera journalists who were found the men guilty. mohamed fahmi have been accused of colluding with the muslim brotherhood. peter was deported after 400 days behind bars. he was retried in abstentia. >> three journalists hope this would mark the end of an ordeal t began in december 2013 when they were arrested and charged with aiding the outlawed muslim brotherhood. they spent more than a year in jail.

legal experts say the trial was a farce. it provoked an outpouring. but that didn't stop the court from convicting them as well as six other colleagues. sentencing them to several years in imprisonment, a verdict that provoked international outrage. >> we have been clear publicly and privately, they should be released. >> egypts court overturned the verdict and ordered a retrial. diplomatic pressure did pay off for peter, released earlier this year. i made a return to australia. but this has cast a shadow over him. no matter how implausible the accusation. >> there was no more evidence the prosecutor was able to

present. and so it's quite clear that we were not involved with any of the things that the prosecutor accused us of. we weren't involved with terrorism. we had no connections with the muslim brotherhood. we did not broadcast any false news. >> meanwhile, they have been released on bail. it was a chance to make up for lost time with a young family. speaking before this latest verdict, he said his struggle was part of a greater battle for freedom of expression. >> i don't hope anything. i'm just living day by day. i think peter will understand this. i'm living day by day. i don't hope anything, i don't expect anything. i know i will continue to fight even if i was acquitted or not, i will continue to fight for press freedom and for those still behind bars who are in desperate need for our support and help. >> he's a victim of egypt's poor

relations. he's taking legal action against al jazeera. it says he will carry on fighting for the three and for the other al jazeera employees who were convicted in the original trial. >> we have a former editor of the newspaper in egypt. he joins me live now on the set. what do you make of that? >> well, i guess there's nothing new. what we heard, what we saw, it's not new. we have been seeing that scene for the last two years. unfortunately, judiciary in egypt do not want to shy away from politics. and this is really -- >> there had been so much hope

on this case, for example, a lot of people putting stock in who was attending. we had the canadian ambassador to egypt, the british ambassador and the applebee's door for the they wanted a good sign. people had been hoping there could be a bit of face saving here and everything would be acquitted. why do you think this hasn't happened? >> i believe that the whole thing in egypt, it's almost like it became almost like a run-away train. and that includes the judiciary as well. i believe that the judiciary influenced very much during the last two years by politics. they have been influenced by the executive. and this is a very sort of thing

to see in egypt, especially -- i'm an egyptian, i know how glorious the history of judiciary is. it has always been in egypt. i feel very frustrated personally i feel very frustrated. >> if it has had a glorious past in terms of the judiciary, is there any way to reel it back? >> i guess the only way to reel it back is to reform the country, reform politics. it's the only way is to go back to democracy, the only way is to separate between the powers. i mean, there have been a mix between the powers. there's only one power. let's face it. it is the executives and it's the head of the executive to be more specific. so the only way to go back to

that glorious past, i believe, is to go back to democracy. that is the only guarantee for an independent, uninfluenced judiciary. because, you see, the two main objectives of any judiciary is first to achieve justice for the benefit of the victim, be it a person, persons or a society. and the second, which in my view is more important, objective, is to prevent tomorrow's criminals from being born today which is a preventative objective. neither of these objectives have been achieved in egypt by the judiciary for the last two years. >> let's bring it back to the case, the immediate result we have got here. peter was deported by

presidential order. people saying they are at the mercy of mr. >> i doubt he didn't want this trial to happen. actually, it happened when he was a defense minister and running practically the country. >> it's like a run-away train then. >> yes. that leaves us with one option, a presidential pardon, which is not a very good thing because nothing have been done, committed in the first place to be pardoned. but that's the only option that we have got now. let me just, because this is something that aches my heart for my fellow egyptians. you just mentioned that peter,

we feel happy for him and feel happy for him to be out of the country at this moment. but that leaves us with one fact. that it's just egyptians who are being treated by their own regime as children of the lesser god. well, they are not. and they are not supposed to be treated as such. we are not the children of the lesser god. >> okay. so what can egypt do? what can egypt do? >> you mean -- >> when you say egyptians are being treated. you made a differentiation between how peter has been treated. he's been given an element of his life. he doesn't have his life back and his career back. but mr. fahmi and mr. mohamed are still under that regime. >> yes. >> also, they were also up to i

believe 20 other journalists being held in the court as we speak not even facing trial. they don't even have a date for a court case. >> yes. >> can egyptians do anything to change this? >> well, i believe that egyptians by themselves, they cannot do much. i believe it's up to the international community or what they call the international community, if there is such thing, to do something. >> what can they do? >> pressures. political pressures. they can always exert pressures. we are not asking for pressures to do or to effect something evil. but it's the country, we want pressures to effect something good. and you mentioned fahmi, i feel bad and sad for him as well, but

at least fahmi has got another nationality and most likely he wouldn't serve his time in prison because he has been pressurized to give up his own egyptian nationality and most likely he will be deported to canada to serve the rest of the time in canada. >> just on that point, just remind our viewers what was handed down in that company row court. mohamed fahmi was sentenced to three years. peter who has deported, he's been sentenced to three years in prison. mohamed also a three year sentence with an additional six months for possession of a bullet, is the charge there. now, in terms of those sentences, will they at all, according to the egyptian judiciary, take into account the

400 days and 400 plus 12 for the other two men, mr. fahmi and mry been served? >> yes, definitely. according to the procedural law, yes, of course, all this time they served already will be minussed from the sentence today. >> it was three years, could they have been handed more? >> of course. i'm sorry to talk about these details. but according to the procedure of law in egypt, the year is not actually 12 months. it's nine months. so a year in prison in egypt, except for certain felonies like homicides and, you know, drug trafficking, one or two felonies, the year in prison is counted by nine months.

so nine months minus the time that they served during the trial, yeah. >> okay. >> so that would leave us with almost 10 more, 11. we are talking about the principle. we are not talking about the time. >> absolutely. we are going to leave it there for now. thank you very much for that. we are going to speak to camal. i have seen appalling, disgusting. >> it's gone crazy. bear with me. it's moving quickly. and there is a lot of colorful language out there, my own included, i would add. forgive me for that. it's disgusting. first of all, let's bring up the trends map. there it is. the first thing, the only good news is that it's trending all over the world now. strong in europe, strong throughout egypt, australia has been tweeting before the verdict

came out this morning. we are getting the word out there. but the word is one of huge disappointment. let me bring up my twitter feed. we are hoping to speak directly to peter in a moment. in the meantime, i will tell you what he said on twitter. shocked, outraged, angry, upset. none convey how i think. three year sentences. it's so wrong. that is peter's immediate reaction. we are hoping to speak to him soon, 515 retweets. watch that go up. this picture posted of the wife of mohamed. this is unfair. we won't accept it. she's in tears in court as her husband goes back to jail. this is a picture from earlier. i wanted to show you this. mohamed was on the phone outside the court talking to a former al

jazeera correspondent on trial today, also remembering those people, and the other egyptian journalists who don't have as much as a voice as our journalists do. some other things i can quickly show you. this is topsy.com which tells us about trending, that keeps moving up and moving up. you see the trends. that was august 2 when the last date we thought a verdict was going to come and now we see the spike again coming up here. that's some of the stuff we have going. in the meantime, you can go here, www.aljazeera.com. this is our free aj stuff with the background information. but updating there. send something to me, we have got twitter addresses here to have a look at.

there they are. please send me anything. if you have in egypts or have pictures, please send them through to us, @al jazeera. >> thank you for that. we are going to speak to peter now. he joins us live from sydney. peter, i have seen your tweets. many people around the world have read your tweets. explain to us exactly how devastated you are feeling right now. >> it's very difficult thing to do. words don't do it justice. we always always suspected that maybe that the court may need to make a conviction, but it was going to be for political reasons. and the only sensible thing they could have done is perhaps

sentences for times served. but to be given three year sentences is outrageous. it's devastating for me. i know my heart is with the others. i know what they are going through. i know the prisons that they are going to be going back to. i know their families that they are leaving behind. i can't begin to tell you how heavily that weighs on me. we did nothing wrong. the court presented no evidence, the prosecution presented no evidence that we did anything wrong. and so for us to be convicted as terrorists on no evidence at all is frankly outrageous. it can only have been a political reasons. >> what next for you, peter? >> well, just been talking to my lawyer. we have to keep fighting. for the others, no doubt, they

will, excuse me, i'm having trouble with my ear piece. for the others, there is no doubt they will be appealing. i won't be able to appeal. we understand under the current law because i have to be physically present to lodge an appeal. we'll explore other legal avenues we have open to us. the fact is that this is wrong. this is unjust. this is unethical. this is immoral at so many levels. this cannot be allowed to stand. we will do everything we can to fight the verdict to clear our names. we are not terrorists, we did not collude with any organization, we did not broadcast any false news. at every level, both in terms of the liberty of my colleagues in terms of my name, the names of all of us, we have to keep fighting. >> peter, you mentioned that you had an initial conversation with your lawyer. practically what does that

three-year sentence mean minus the time you have already served? do you understand the technicalities of that? what do you understand by it? >> look, well, i do understand just been hearing a year in egyptian terms is counted as nine months. although that was never formally clarified to us in court or in prison in egypt. we would need to clarify the terms. the problem for me though is, and in fact for all of the other journalists, the other people convicted in our case in the first trial, they can only be counted if we are in prison to serve the time. so for my colleagues, the time will run down as long as they are in prison. god forbid they have to spend that time in prison. for the rest of us, the conviction stands. now, if egypt issues

international arrest warrants, as is standard under these circumstances, it means i won't be able to travel to any country that has an expedition treaty and that makes a mess of my career as a foreign correspondent. these are all things we need to look at. let's go back to the fundamental principle. whatever the consequences, this is a judgment that is not based on evidence, period. anyone who watched the trial, we had many people broadcasting or reporting on the trial throughout. we had international diplomats observing the trial, we had independent observers, none saw any evidence to substantiate the allegations. so we need to call on international pressure on governments and diplomats around the world to make it clear to egypt, it can't be allowed to get away with this. it must accept the rule of law

if it's going to get international support. >> you mentioned this was not based on evidence and it was a judgment based on political reasons, political motivations. would you mine just expanding that for us, please. >> it's very difficult. the problem for all of us, the problem we have had all along is that the system is opaque. we don't know what's driving the decision making processes. when the judge issued the ruling after the first trial, it was never clear to us on what basis the judge was making his decisions. the ruling was inconsistent. it seemed to us to be completely unsubstantiated. the court agree with that assessment, it overturned the verdict in the first case in the first trial. so there is a chance that the court will overturn this again

if it is allowed to review this. there is a lot of stuff that we need to look at, we need to look at the law, the law has been changing in egypt. it's difficult to give a definitive answer to you. fundamentally, what we need to do is fight this to the very end and call on everybody else, i might add, all of those millions of people who supported the free aj hashtag, to keep tweeting, keep speaking or writing to the media, keep writing on social media to make sure that egypt understands that the world isn't accepting this. >> i don't know if you are aware of the new blog that the egyptian government launched. the reason for this, the government said, is this a blog

that you would be attributing to? what do you make of that? >>

>> we are joined by the acting manager. your reaction, first. >> shocked, sickened, appalled at today's verdict. they were arrested on false charges, they have been convicted without a shred of evidence. they were in prison over a year and now going back to prison. we are shocked. >> what next for the three men? >> we led a successful, at least in terms of publicizing their case, free al jazeera staff. we'll escalate that campaign. it drew a lot of support from world leaders, presidents, politicians, diplomats, international media organizations, human rights groups and people around the world. we'll seek to escalate that campaign. if i can use the words of a famous american journalist, the words apply today, accusation is not proof.

and conviction depends on evidence and due process of law. we'll not walk in fear and not driven by fear into an age of unreason. >> there have been questions as to whether al jazeera could have done more to get them released? >> the safety and well being of our staff is of paramount importance. we launched this international campaign to have them freed. we paid legal costs, we have paid medical costs, paid bail, we continue to pay their salaries. we are doing our utmost to support them and get their release. >> what does al jazeera make of the state of journalism in egypt at the moment in terms of those new press freedom laws? what's your take on this? what does it mean for the country? >> what we are seeing here is a

totalitarian regime. you mentioned the law where journalists can be fined if they don't toe the government line. what we are seeing, it goes back to what we believe is at the heart of this case. it's about media freedom. we want to shout about the right to report freely and fairly without harassment, without being intimidated, without being arrested, without being attacked. and that's the essence of what this is all about. and unfortunately, egypt seems that press freedom is really under threat and under attack. one thing i would add is that following the egyptian court case and live as it was happening, the judge seemed to say that the journalists, one of the reasons they were there was because they weren't members of the egyptian journalis journalid

catjournalistsyndicate. is it also liable to be prosecuted in some way? >> a lot of people, a lot of viewers don't understand the process that has to be taken for a journalist in a foreign country. it's something that al jazeera as an organization respects and carries through. first off, they were talking about political motivations. what are your thoughts on that? >> i think as far as it goes back to the essence, it's about media freedom. some of our journalists were accredited, others it was pending and hadn't been forthcoming. but it was a process that was happening. this isn't an administrative issue. it's not a criminal issue, certainly not something that you put journalists behind bars.

>> put is simply for the viewers. what does it mean to be accredited in another country? >> to get the official sanction from the government. we always seek to get accreditation. it is a bureaucratic issue. sometimes it can take time. journalists coming in and out of countries, it does take time. >> we'll leave it there for now. thank you very much. thank you. okay. let's get the latest from camal. he's been following the story the last half hour, 40 minutes. what are they saying? >> exploding on social media. we have to ramp up the free aj stuff hashtag. we thank you for that. let's bring up the map first of all. oh,