Egypt's top court has ordered a retrial of Australian journalist Peter Greste and two of his Al Jazeera colleagues, jailed on charges of spreading false news.
Al-Jazeera news channel's Australian journalist Peter Greste, left, and his colleagues, Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, centre, and Egyptian Baher Mohamed listen to the original verdict in June. Photo: AFP
The decision was made after the hearing in Cairo of an appeal by the three - Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed - against their conviction.
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Prosecutors acknowledged major problems with the verdict, defence lawyers said. A new trial will occur within a month but the trio must stay in custody.
Al-Jazeera called on the authorities to release its journalists quickly.
The journalists deny the charges, which included collaborating with the banned Muslim Brotherhood after the overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi by the military in 2013.
They say they were simply reporting the news.
Two of them are foreign nationals - Greste, a former BBC correspondent, is Australian, and his producer colleague, Mohammed Fahmy, holds Egyptian and Canadian citizenship.
The three journalists have now spent a year in jail since they were first arrested in December 2013.
They were convicted in June, with Fahmy and Greste jailed for seven years and Mohamed for 10 years.
Judges have ruled that they should remain in custody until the new trial.
Greste's mother and father, Lois and Juris, were in Egypt to attend the hearing, the ABC reported.
Outside court, Mrs Greste said: "I can't believe it ... We need some time to process. It's not as positive as we had hoped."
"I'm shocked," Mr Greste added. "This was always on the cards but even though we have learnt not to expect anything, or [to] expect the unexpected, we did expect a little bit better than this."
He said his son would try to get himself deported from Egypt now that the retrial had been ordered.
"We have big hopes in the deportation process," Mr Greste told the ABC.
"Looking at it quite openly, we would be prepared to do almost anything to have to not go through a second trial because even though we and hundreds of senior international jurists around the world - and world leaders - know that the first trial was most unfair and unjust, there is nothing that can be guaranteed even for a retrial."
Australian ambassador Ralph King, accompanying them, said: "Journalists should not be imprisoned for doing their job. I hope this trial will be fair and transparent."