Al Jazeera journalist Mohammed Fahmy stands behind bars at a court in Cairo on May 15, 2014.Reuters
A Canadian journalist who has been imprisoned in Egypt for more than a year has applied to be deported to Canada and his family is hopeful he will soon be on a plane back to this country.
Amal Clooney, the lawyer for Mohamed Fahmy, has submitted a request for deportation to the public prosecutor in Egypt, and Mr. Fahmy's family says an additional intervention by Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird next week could lead to his quick release.
"We have submitted the deportation application and the Fahmy family met with a senior government official who confirmed the process is in its final stages," the Fahmys said in a statement on Tuesday.
"The Canadian government is following up with the Egyptians here," they said, "and hopefully Canadian [Foreign Minister] John Baird's visit next week can expedite the process. We were told it will happen sooner than later and before the retrial commences."
Mr. Baird told reporters on Tuesday that high-level talks are continuing and discussions are in a "critical phase."
Mr. Fahmy, who has Canadian and Egyptian citizenship, was arrested on Dec. 29, 2013, along with two Al Jazeera colleagues, Australian journalist Peter Greste and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed. The trio were convicted last June of conspiring with the banned Muslim Brotherhood to spread false news.
Mr. Fahmy and Mr. Greste were sentenced to seven years in prison and Mr. Mohamed was sentenced to 10 years. A new trial was granted earlier this month, but they remain behind bars without bail.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi issued a decree in November that allows him to deport foreign prisoners in Egypt to their home countries to be tried or to serve the rest of their sentences.
When asked if Mr. Fahmy would be expected to serve out his sentence should he be returned to Canada, Mr. Baird replied: "Let's take it one step at a time."
Lorne Waldman, a Canadian lawyer for Mr. Fahmy, said the legal team wants to meet with Mr. Baird before he departs for Egypt to discuss the conditions for deportation. "We want to understand what would be the terms for his return," Mr. Waldman said.
Mr. Fahmy's fiancée, Marwa Omara, has been granted a temporary visa to Canada and will come with him if he is removed from Egypt.
Mr. Greste's legal team has applied to have him deported to Australia. Mr. Mohamed, an Egyptian citizen, has no such option.
Given Mr. Fahmy's strong convictions about press freedoms, Mr. Waldman said, "I can only imagine that it will be extremely difficult for him to leave, knowing that his Egyptian colleague may not have the same good fortune in being able to leave and to be free."
In an editorial in The New York Times on Tuesday, Mr. Fahmy said statements made in December by government officials in Egypt and Qatar, where Al Jazeera is based, led him to believe he and his colleagues were about to be released.
"Instead, we now face a further trial, with no guarantee of a just verdict," Mr. Fahmy wrote. "I would like to remind Mr. Sissi that, in the war he is waging against the cancer of political Islam and its violent offspring, journalists are not enemies but allies. We expose the truth about the terrorism he is striving to defeat."