Amal Clooney reveals she risked arrest over Egyptian judicial report

British human rights lawyer Amal Clooney claimed in an interview published Saturday that she was threatened with arrest in Egypt after identifying flaws in the judicial system that later contributed to the convictions of three Al-Jazeera journalists. Clooney, a rights lawyer who married Hollywood star George Clooney last year, helped compile a report for the International Bar Association in February 2014 that raised questions about the independence of judges and prosecutors in Egypt. Clooney is one of the lawyers representing one of the trio of Al-Jazeera reporters currently detained in Cairo.

When I went to launch the report, first of all they stopped us from doing it in Cairo. 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’.

Amal Clooney in an interview with The Guardian

Supporters of the three Al-Jazeera journalists, who were detained in December 2013 and accused of spreading false information and aiding the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood, say the charges were politically motivated. Egypt’s top court on Thursday ordered a retrial of Australian Peter Greste, Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohamed, but kept the journalists in custody pending a new hearing. Fahmy – whom Clooney represents – and Greste are seeking deportation, while Mohamed’s wife said she was looking at ways to get her husband out of Egypt. Clooney said she hoped that Fahmy’s deportation would go ahead “in fairly quick terms”, expressing little confidence in a retrial.

I don’t see how the prosecution can proceed again in a trial process even if the judges were to be constituted properly this time around. I don’t see how they could fix the lack of evidence.

Hollywood star George Clooney

Middle East