Prosecutors call for 'maximum penalty' in #AJTrial

Egyptian prosecutors on Thursday demanded the "maximum" penalty, ranging from 15 to 25 years in jail, for all 20 defendants in the trial of Al Jazeera journalists accused of aiding the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

"We request that the court, without compassion or mercy, apply the maximum penalty for the abominable crimes they have committed ... mercy for such (people) will bring the entire society close to darkness," prosecutor Mohamed Barakat told the court.

The 16 Egyptian defendants in the case are accused of joining the Muslim Brotherhood, which authorities designated as a terrorist organisation last December. The four foreign defendants, including Australian Al Jazeera English reporter Peter Greste, have been charged with “spreading false news” and publishing it on the Internet and Al Jazeera.

Nine of the 20 defendants are in detention, while the others are being tried in absentia, including three foreign reporters who are abroad. The 16 Egyptians could get prison terms of 25 years, while the four foreigners could be jailed for 15 years, according to defence lawyer Ibrahim Abdel Wahab.

Greste and Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, the Cairo bureau chief of Al Jazeera English, were arrested in a hotel room in the capital on 29 December. The two appeared in a caged dock on Thursday with seven co-defendants.

Fahmy could be heard criticising the process from inside a cage in court, in video recorded by a journalist in attendance on Thursday.

“You are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but in this situation you are guilty the second you are arrested,” said Fahmy. “We have been treated worse than criminals, rapists or killers by being held in solitary confinement with no outings and no food,” he added.

Greste, Fahmy and others have regularly denounced the trial as “unfair” and “political”, saying the evidence against them has been “fabricated”. In court on Thursday, prosecutors reportedly said the men had reported on incidents of sexual assaults in the country to tarnish the image of Egypt, much to the consternation of journalists in attendance.

The trial forms part of a brutal crackdown by military-backed authorities since last July’s coup removed the country’s first elected president Mohammed Morsi from power. More than 1,400 people have been killed in a police crackdown against protests and over 40,000 arrested for political reasons, according to Egyptian monitoring group Wikithawra, with hundreds of those detained sentenced to death in short trials decried by human rights groups.

Former army chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi won the 26-28 May election with 96.91 percent of the vote, although a lower than expected turnout of 47 percent led some commentators to question the level of popular support enjoyed by the country’s next president.

Sisi is due to be inaugurated as the president of Egypt on 8 June, with a national holiday announced for the occasion. Kings and heads of states are expected to attend the event at Cairo’s Ittihadiya palace.