Peter Greste trial: Al Jazeera journalist found guilty, sentenced to seven years in jail

Updated

Australian journalist Peter Greste and two of his Al Jazeera colleagues have been found guilty by an Egyptian court of spreading false news and supporting the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood.

Greste and Mohamed Fahmy were sentenced to seven years in jail by a judge and Baher Mohamed was sentenced to 10 years. Three other journalists who were tried in absentia were handed 10-year sentences.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the Australian Government was "shocked" by the verdict and "appalled by the severity of it".

Ms Bishop said the Government would be in contact with the new Egyptian government about whether there is any way for it to intervene.

Greste's parents Juris and Lois reacted to their son's jailing with dismay: "My god, my god ... that's crazy, that's absolutely crazy."

Middle East correspondent Hayden Cooper was in court for the verdict and described the scenes as "chaotic".

Peter Greste banged the cage holding him when he heard the sentence.

"We couldn't quite hear what the judge was saying, but eventually it became clear the sentence was handed down," Cooper said.

"The reaction was awful, basically. Everyone started shouting and then chanting ... the family are just stunned by the verdict.

"It's really quite an extraordinary scene as the family try to come to grips with what has just happened."

Greste's brothers, Andrew and Mike, were in court for the verdict. Andrew said there were chaotic scenes both there and outside the jail as Peter and the other defendants were rushed out of the courtroom.

He said he was not able to speak to his brother, and the judge did not provide an explanation for the verdict.

"I do understand that it's part of the process of delivering a verdict. I think that there is a written explanation of the court's decision, but that wasn't at all spoken in court and I haven't seen anything at all yet which outlines the reasoning," he told the ABC's 7.30 program.

"It's pretty difficult to prepare yourself for that [verdict]. I don't know how you do prepare yourself. [It's] obviously something that we're going to have to process and digest over the next day or two, but regardless of whether you prepare yourself, the emotions still are just devastated. I'm gutted. It's just unbelievable really.

"Obviously Mike and I are here together ... as soon as I can sort of make contact with Australia, I will be giving mum and dad a call."

He said his family would now be exploring all of their options.

"Obviously we're not going to give up the fight to get Peter released because we believe he's completely innocent. He's done nothing wrong," he said.

"But it's just going to be a matter of looking at all the options and discussing it with people that have helped us along the way through this process and develop a strategy from here."

Al Jazeera English managing director Al Anstey said the verdict "defies logic, sense, and any semblance of justice".

"Peter, Mohamed, and Baher and six of our other colleagues were sentenced despite the fact that not a shred of evidence was found to support the extraordinary and false charges against them," he said in a statement.

"At no point during the long drawn out trial did the absurd allegations stand up to scrutiny. There were many moments during the hearings where in any other court of law, the trial would be thrown out.

"There were numerous irregularities in addition to the lack of evidence to stand up the ill-conceived allegations."

Mr Anstey said the only sensible outcome was for "the verdict to be overturned, and justice to be recognised by Egypt".

Ms Bishop told reporters the Federal Government was shocked by the verdict.

"We are deeply dismayed by the fact that a sentence has been imposed and we are appalled by the severity of it," she said.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Julie Bishop discusses the verdict (ABC News)

"It is hard to credit that the court in this case could have reached this conclusion.

"This kind of verdict does nothing to support Egypt's claim to be on a transition to democracy, and the Australian Government urges the new government of Egypt to reflect on what message is being sent to the world about the situation in Egypt."

Ms Bishop said the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will be in contact with the Egyptian ambassador today.

"We respect the outcome of the recent elections in Egypt and we will now initiate contact at the highest levels in the new Egyptian Government to see whether we can gain some kind of intervention from the new government, and find out whether intervention is indeed possible at this stage," she said.

"I have spoken at length with Peter Greste's parents. They are considering their legal options, including appeal options.

"We do not know how long an appeal process would take. But, in the meantime, we will provide whatever consular assistance we can to Mr Greste and of course to his family."

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said he and Labor were "shocked at the awful news".

"Labor will work with the Government to do whatever we can to remedy this problem at the earliest possible date," he said.

"Our thoughts about this appalling news are with Peter Greste's family and Peter Greste. He should know that the whole of Australia is right behind him and his family."

US secretary of state John Kerry also condemned what he said was a "chilling and draconian" sentence.

"When I heard the verdict today I was so concerned about it ... that I immediately picked up the telephone and talked to the foreign minister of Egypt and registered our serious displeasure at this kind of verdict," he said.

Prosecutors had been demanding 15-year penalty

Greste, along with his colleagues Fahmy and Mohamed, had been in detention since their arrest in late December.

Prosecutors were demanding the maximum penalty of between 15 and 20 years in jail for Greste and his co-accused.

Greste and his colleagues were among a group of 20 journalists charged by the Egyptian government in a case that has triggered international outrage about press freedom in Egypt.

Of that group, 16 were Egyptians accused with joining the Brotherhood, which was designated a terrorist organisation in the wake of the army's ousting of elected president Mohamed Morsi last July.

Prosecutors said the relationship between Al Jazeera and the Muslim Brotherhood was like an alliance with the devil, and that Greste's reportage was intended to harm the Egyptian state.

However, Greste told the judge that evidence against him had been falsified and asked for an acquittal.

"Prosecutors did not present a single piece of evidence - there wasn't a single piece of evidence in court," he said earlier this month.

"It was falsified, there weren't any facts that we got wrong. There was no story that we manipulated."

The conviction comes after both Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Ms Bishop appealed to the Egyptian government on Greste's behalf.

Greste's family, who have worked tirelessly to keep the journalist's plight in the spotlight, had previously conceded there was little the Government could do.

Four foreigners, including Greste, were charged with "spreading false news" and collaborating with and assisting the Egyptian defendants in their crimes by providing media material, as well as editing and publishing it.

Greste's charges stem from what was supposed to be a "routine" three-week stint last December covering Egypt's political turmoil.

"The fact that we were arrested for what seems to be a set of relatively uncontroversial stories tells us a lot about what counts as 'normal' and what is dangerous in post-revolutionary Egypt," Greste wrote in January.

Egyptian authorities have enacted a fierce crackdown against Islamists since listing the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation.

Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie and 182 leaders were last week sentenced to death in a mass trial.

Newspaper editor says sentence paints frightening picture

Lina Attalah, chief editor of Mada Masra, an independent Egyptian online newspaper, said she was shocked by the verdict.

"We were particularly moved by this ruling ... because it gets quite personal," she told ABC News 24.

"What Peter and the others were doing when they were arrested and sentenced today is very similar to what we are doing, basically reporting the news without siding with any party, while being completely independent.

Peter Greste Born in Sydney in 1965

Graduated from Queensland Institute of Technology, now QUT, in 1986

Worked internationally for BBC, Reuters, CNN, WTN, Al Jazeera

Covered emergence of the Taliban and post-9/11 war in Afghanistan

Won 2011 Peabody Award for documentary Somalia: Land of Anarchy

Correspondent for Al Jazeera in Africa since 2005 covering Horn of Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and the Great Lake states

"I doubt that we will stop doing our job because that's how we function and that's how we exist but ... we are conscious that the price is high now."

Ms Attalah said the verdict has triggered a change in the atmosphere in Egypt.

"I think the case [will] definitely contribute to creating an atmosphere of fear, of feeling that expressing yourself ... is extremely costly," she said.

"I'm not sure the extent to which there has been pressure and I'm not sure the extent to which there ... is a genuine desire from Egypt ... to follow a democratic path."

Ms Attalah said the sentence given paints a frightening picture for activists, human rights defenders, lawyers and journalists who remain in prison on similar charges.

But Dr Bob Bowker, a Middle East specialist from Australian National University (ANU), told ABC News 24 that he believed the Egyptian judiciary would be persuaded to bring forward the appeal process.

"I think it is quite likely we will see fairly early action to have this case referred to a higher judicial authority, perhaps with ... shall we say, a more considered look at the evidentiary basis on which this verdict has been reached," he said.

Dr Bowker said the end result was far from clear.

"There are ways in which the pressure upon Egypt to review this absurd outcome can be ramped up and that the Government will be losing absolutely no sleep on its likelihood of achieving a better outcome," he said.

"There is far too much at stake in the Egyptian dealings with Australia to allow something like this outcome to shape the tenure of a relationship which, for 50 years, has been a very positive one.

"I don't think that the Egyptians are going to be able to simply walk away from that relationship on the strength of one court decision."

The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) has also condemned the verdict.

"The verdict of the court, despite the lack of evidence and bizarre court proceedings over more than a dozen hearings, is an appalling attack on press freedom and carries an implicit threat to all media working in Egypt," a statement said.

"The court proceedings have been farcical from the outset and there has not been a shred of evidence presented by the prosecution that in any way implicates the journalists in the charges of defaming Egypt and having ties to the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood."

Topics: courts-and-trials, law-crime-and-justice, journalism, information-and-communication, egypt, australia

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