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Jailed journalist sues Al Jazeera for $100M

Mohamed Fahmy, the Al Jazeera journalist who spent more than a year in an Egyptian prison, announced on Monday he is suing the network for $100 million for negligence and for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.

“I am here to announce that I will set the record straight and put Al Jazeera on trial in Canada’s top court. The network not only deceived us journalists, breached contract and acted negligently toward us before the arrest, they also failed to reimburse me for my full legal fees,” Fahmy said at a news conference.

Fahmy is accusing the company of negligence for not heeding security warnings, misinforming him about their legal status and airing his reports on its Egyptian channel Jazeera Mubashir Masr, which was banned in Egypt for reporting favoring the Muslim Brotherhood, deemed a terrorist organization in the country.

It’s another twist in a long case that began when Egyptian authorities arrested Fahmy and two other Al Jazeera journalists in December 2013 after they and others were charged with belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, threatening Egypt's national security, airing false news and other offenses. Egyptian courts called for a retrial earlier this year and Fahmy was released on bail. He's given up his Egyptian citizenship in hopes of being deported to Canada, where he is also a citizen.

Fahmy said that while in prison he learned that Al Jazeera supplied cameras to members of the Muslim Brotherhood and used their footage without attribution.

“A lot of the research I've done in prison and since I've been out of prison has really added a lot of what I'm saying today in terms of clearly stating that Al Jazeera Mubashir is not just biased; they are sponsors of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Fahmy said.

It’s especially awkward because while its journalists were in prison, Al Jazeera launched a major publicity campaign, taking out full-page advertisements in The New York Times and launching a social media campaign dubbed #FreeAJStaff, calling for the journalists’ release.

An Al Jazeera spokesperson told CNN that Fahmy’s case is “sad.”

“It's sad to see Fahmy and his lawyer repeating criticisms of Al Jazeera made by the Egyptian authorities," the spokesman said. "It's what his captors want to hear at this stage of the retrial. All governments have news outlets that they don't like, but they don't use spurious grounds to put journalists in jail. If Fahmy wants to seek monetary compensation from anyone, it should be from his jailers."

Fahmy’s lawsuit is the latest in a string of bad PR over the past month for the network owned by the ruling family of Qatar. Al Jazeera America, the new American arm of the network, was slapped with a $15 million lawsuit last month, accusing the network of wrongful termination and discrimination against women and Jews. Three top executives then resigned, and shortly thereafter Al Jazeera America’s CEO was replaced.

Hadas Gold is a reporter at Politico.