CAIRO—Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy blasted court proceedings as a “circus” on Monday, the second day of his retrial in Egypt on terror-related charges.

The court session was quickly adjourned to March 8 when two of the defendants named in the case — students who are still imprisoned on separate charges — were not present in court.

“There are more inefficiencies,” said Fahmy in a phone interview after Monday’s hearing. “How can defendants who are in the custody of the police not be brought to court?”

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Fahmy and his Al Jazeera colleagues, Egyptian Baher Mohamed and Australian Peter Greste, spent more than 400 days in prison on trumped up charges of spreading false news harmful to Egypt's national security and being part of a terrorist group in a case that sparked worldwide condemnation.

After a trial that was criticized by human rights groups as a sham, the three journalists were sentenced in June to between seven and 10 years in prison.

Egypt's highest appeals court ordered a retrial on Jan. 1, ruling that their conviction was based on flawed evidence and issuing a damning appraisal of the original trial. Greste was deported on Feb. 1 under a decree that allows the president to deport foreigners convicted of crimes to their home countries.

Fahmy and Mohamed were granted bail in the opening session of the retrial on Feb. 12, though they have to report to a police station every day.

“We are looking at a lengthy retrial,” said Fahmy, after the postponement to the second week of March. “Anyone assuming this trial is going to be expedited needs to explain what's going on here.”

Outside the courtroom, Fahmy told reporters that the preceedings were taking their toll. "It's become really costly for me on every level, emotionally, financially — my whole family is stressed," he said, according to The Canadian Press.

Canada's ambassador to Egypt, Troy Lulashnyk attended Monday's court session and shook hands with Fahmy as he arrived in the courtroom. “We want to see a timely decision by the Egyptian government and their judicial process carried out expeditiously and we will continue to advocate strongly for the immediate release of Mr. Fahmy,” said Lulashnyk.

He declined to comment when asked whether Prime Minister Stephen Harper would personally intervene in the case. Fahmy has publicly urged Harper to call Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi personally and push for his deportation.

Fahmy's Egyptian lawyer, Khaled Abu Bakr, asked the court for Fahmy's Canadian passport to be returned, though the judge ordered that the only copy be sent to him. Fahmy has been without any form of identification since his release from prison more than 10 days ago. Fahmy said he asked Lulashnyk after the hearing to consider his passport lost and to have it replaced.

“I am walking around without any ID, I can't rent a flat, I can't reserve hotel room. It's more complicated to get married,” Fahmy said. “I hope Canada can issue a new passport.”

Abu Bakr also submitted documents to prove that Fahmy officially renounced his Egyptian citizenship. Fahmy has said he was pressured to do so by senior Egyptian government officials with the understanding that he would be deported as Greste eventually was.

Since his release on bail, Fahmy has been highly critical of his network, Al Jazeera, saying it was negligent in its handling of the case. “I'm not losing sight that the Egyptian prosecution put us in jail, however the epic negligence of Al Jazeera has given the court more firepower,” he said.

In the middle of the original trial, the Qatar-based network sued Egypt for $150 million in compensation for what it said was damage to its media business, a move that was seen as worsening Qatari-Egypt relations and potentially harmful to the journalists on trial.

Fahmy also had disagreements over Al Jazeera's choice of lawyers and instead opted to retain Abu Bakr as his own attorney. “My concerns about their unprofessional lawyers hired in the first stage materialized when one of Al Jazeera's lawyers withdrew and turned against the network and the defendants in the cage, therefore contributing to our sentence,” Fahmy said.

Immediately following the retrial session on Monday, the same judge, Hassan Farid, issued a controversial verdict in a separate case against 25 defendants — including prominent activist and blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah — sentencing them to between three and five years in prison for a peaceful protest outside a government building in November 2013.

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Egypt's judiciary have come under heavy criticism for issuing a series of rulings that have imprisoned thousands of Egyptians as well as issuing mass death sentences against supporters of the banned Muslim Brotherhood in a harsh crackdown on any and all opposition voices.

“The worst culprits in the erosion of justice, of civil society, of everything that makes life livable in Egypt are the judiciary,” said Abdel Fattah's aunt, Ahdaf Soueif, a renowned writer and activist. “It's been such a bitter disappointment that the judiciary could destroy a basic belief in justice that people have because they've decided that their interests lie with this regime.”

With files from The Canadian Press

Sharif Abdel Kouddous is a Cairo-based fellow of the Nation Institute.

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