Star lawyer Clooney warned of Egypt arrest

Amal Clooney, the leading human rights barrister, was threatened with arrest by Egyptian officials after she identified flaws in the country’s justice system that led to the jailing of three Al Jazeera journalists, it has emerged.

The British-Lebanese lawyer, who married George Clooney, the American actor, at a lavish ceremony in Venice last September, represents Mohamed Fahmy, one of three journalists convicted of terrorism in December 2013.

On Thursday, an Egyptian court ordered the retrial of the three journalists, acknowledging major problems with their initial conviction.

The sentences given to Mr Fahmy, the Doha-based broadcaster’s Egyptian-Canadian bureau chief; Peter Greste, an Australian former BBC journalist; and Baher Mohamed, an Egyptian freelance producer, had provoked international outrage.

In an interview, Mrs Clooney said a report that she had co-authored on the independence of Egypt’s judiciary — a politically sensitive subject in the North African country — was deemed so controversial that she was warned she could be arrested if she visited Cairo.

“When I went to launch the report, first of all they stopped us from doing it in Cairo,” Mrs Clooney said. “They said, ‘Does the report criticise the army, the judiciary, or the government?’ We said, ‘Well, yes.’ They said, ‘Well then, you’re risking arrest.’?“

In Egypt, insulting the judiciary is an offence that can carry a prison sentence.

The document, compiled on behalf of the International Bar Association, highlights wide-ranging powers that Egypt’s government can wield over judges and state prosecutors, and recommended an end to its hand-picking of judges in high-profile cases.

Mrs Clooney went on a fact-finding mission to Egypt to compile the report in June 2013, before its publication last February.

 “That recommendation wasn’t followed, and we’ve seen the results of that in this particular [Al Jazeera] case where you had a hand-picked panel led by a judge who is known for dispensing brutal verdicts,” she told the Guardian.

 Mr Fahmy has enlisted Mrs Clooney as his international counsel, along with Mark Wassouf, London-based barrister, after becoming dissatisfied with the quality of legal support offered by Al Jazeera.

Mrs Clooney, who is also advising Greece on reclaiming the Elgin Marbles, has called for her client’s release.

 In August, she wrote: “Sentencing a political opponent to death after a show trial is no different to taking him out on the street and shooting him. In fact, it is worse because using the court system as a tool of state repression makes a mockery of the rule of law.”

She has also called on the Egyptian government to release Mr Fahmy on medical grounds, after disclosing that he is suffering from Hepatitis C, as well as having lost the full use of his arm after a pre-existing shoulder injury was exacerbated by weeks spent sleeping on the prison’s stone floor. The three Al Jazeera journalists were arrested in Cairo’s

Marriott Hotel in December 2013 and accused of helping a “terrorist organisation“.

They were sentenced to between seven and 10 years in prison last June in a politically charged case that drew the United Nations to question the independence of Egypt’s judiciary.

The lengthy trial was adjudicated by a judge, Mohamed Nagy Shehata, who has become notorious for severe sentencing. He recently handed out 188 death sentences in a single trial.

But on New Year’s Day, an appeals court judge ordered that the journalists be retried, offering new hope.

Even if they are not acquitted, the two foreign nationals would be eligible for deportation, while all three men would be eligible for a presidential pardon.

The families of Mr Fahmy and Mr Greste have since confirmed that their lawyers have lodged an official request for the two men to be deported if they are not acquitted.

 The Daily Telegraph

 02–01–2015