Australian Peter Greste (who worked for the British media prior to joining Al-Jazeera), Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian national Baher Mohamed are serving seven to ten-year sentences on charges of aiding the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and publishing false news about Egypt.
An Egyptian judge had sentenced the three Al-Jazeera journalists to seven years in jail after finding them guilty on charges including helping a "terrorist organisation" by publishing lies.
The third defendant, Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed, received an additional three-year jail sentence on a separate charge involving possession of weapons. Another 11 defendants, including two Britons, were sentenced in absentia to 10 years.
The three journalists were detained in late December 2013 and charged with helping a "terrorist organisation" by publishing lies that harmed the national interest and supplying money, equipment and information to 16 Egyptians.
Abdullah al-Shamy, an Al Jazeera colleague who had been detained but was later released after hunger strike, was also there. "I'm certain of their innocence," he said. All three had been held at Egypt's notorious Tora Prison for six months ahead of their trial, in a case that drew criticism from western governments and human rights groups.
Tom Dale, an Egypt-based journalist, told Sputnik when they were sentenced: "Both Mohamed Fahmy and Peter Greste received seven years. Baher Mohamed, who's a producer with Al Jazeera English, received ten year — possibly because he was accused of being in possession of ammunition, which we understand to be a single bullet, possibly even a spent shell case that was found in his house when it was raided. So he stands to spend ten years in jail, unless of course these sentences are overturned on appeal."
