Mohamed Fahmy, one of two al-Jazeera journalists still held in Egypt, could be freed within hours after it was revealed that he has renounced his Egyptian citizenship.

A relative of Fahmy said the journalist, who is also Canadian, was told to give up his nationality or his freedom, AFP reported.



His fiancée, Marwa Omara, told the Canadian Press that it was a very difficult decision for Fahmy because he is a “proud Egyptian who comes from a family of military service”.

Al-Jazeera English said Fahmy could be released within hours. Earlier, Canada’s foreign minister, John Baird, said his release was “imminent”.

On Sunday, Egypt freed Fahmy’s al-Jazeera colleague Peter Greste, after the Australian had spent 400 days in jail. He immediately flew to Cyprus and said on Tuesday that he will leave soon for his home country.



Peter Greste (@PeterGreste) Free in Cyprus! Feels sweet. Peter back online for first time in 400+ days. Special thanks to Mike 4 nursing twitter pic.twitter.com/APATL1RljI

Peter Greste (@PeterGreste) Brother Mike and I due to head home to Australia shortly. Can't wait for the family reunion. Keep shouting #FreeAJStaff

The status of the third member of the al-Jazeera team, Baher Mohamed, who is Egyptian, remains unclear.

Peter Greste is free but Egypt’s journalists remain muzzled | Wadah Khanfar Read more

Fahmy, al-Jazeera’s Cairo bureau chief, was arrested in December 2013 along with Greste and Mohamed. They had been accused of colluding with the ousted and outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition group.

As a Canadian, Fahmy is expected to be deported under the terms of a recently-enacted presidential decree that allows foreign detainees to continue their detention in their home countries, and which is thought to have been enacted with Fahmy’s and Greste’s case in mind.

Earlier, Fahmy criticised the dilemma he faced. “Why should a human being drop his citizenship to be freed from prison for a crime he didn’t commit?” he asked his Twitter followers.

The three AJE (al-Jazeera English) journalists were first detained after their arrest in late December 2013. In that time, Fahmy has developed a chronic shoulder condition after failing to receive proper treatment for an injury sustained shortly before his arrest.

In recent months, Fahmy has been allowed to stay under police guard in a hospital in southern Cairo, but his treatment there was limited. His lawyers, who he now employs independently of al-Jazeera, say he still urgently needs more care for both his shoulder, and for Hepatitis C.

Egypt’s interior ministry has implied that Greste and Fahmy should face punishment in their home countries, under the terms of their deportation. But John Baird confirmed last month that Fahmy would not face trial on his return.

Peter Greste’s release consolidates Egyptian president’s standing in west Read more

Fahmy’s trial in Egypt ended in June 2014, when he and his co-defendants were convicted on trumped-up charges of aiding terrorists, belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood and making false news, after a trial that rights groups and journalists denounced as comically flawed. Evidence used to convict the trio included photographs of Greste’s parents; a song by the musician Gotye; footage of trotting horses; and a press conference in Kenya. The prosecution was also derided for demanding that defence lawyers pay the equivalent of more than £100,000 to access the case files.

This month, an appeals judge appeared to recognise these flaws, sending the case to retrial. But he refused to release the three men on bail – prompting Fahmy and Greste to disclose plans to seek the deportation that they were both finally granted their week.

While in prison, the pair adopted different media strategies to achieve their release. Greste framed his predicament as a straightforward affront to press freedom. But Fahmy portrayed himself as a pawn in a cold war between the Egyptian government and Qatar, the owners of al-Jazeera, who also back the Muslim Brotherhood.

A breakthrough in their plight came after an apparent thaw between the two countries, personified by Qatar’s closure of the Egyptian wing of al-Jazeera in December.

In the international arena, where the three men’s fate has become a cause célèbre, observers view the case as a politicised attack on the freedom of expression, and part of a rampant crackdown on all forms of Egyptian opposition. The three were among at least 12 journalists and – according to the police’s own figures – at least 16,000 political prisoners detained in Egypt in recent months. Independent estimates put the figure at nearly 40,000.

But inside Egypt, many government supporters see the journalists as a legitimate target, since the coverage of AJE’s Arabic sister channels has strongly favoured Brotherhood viewpoints, while the channels’ owner, the state of Qatar, has given financial and logistical support to the group itself. Owing to al-Jazeera’s chequered reputation inside Egypt, Fahmy frequently distanced himself from the network in articles he published in the Egyptian press from inside jail.

Fahmy’s expected departure from jail leaves Baher Mohamed as the sole remaining AJE journalist on remand in Egypt.

In his first interview since his release, Peter Greste said on Monday he would not rest until Mohamed was released. “If anyone has suffered out of all of this, it is Baher because he has a wife and children, one of whom was born [while he was] inside prison,” said Greste. “He was excited that I am out but also concerned because we need to keep the focus on him.”