A Canadian journalist undergoing his second trial in Egypt on widely derided terror-related charges will have to wait nearly a month for his next court hearing.
Mohamed Fahmy called the adjournment to April 22 "excruciating" and said it contradicts all suggestions that Egypt wants to expedite his case.
Fahmy was working for satellite news broadcaster Al Jazeera English when he and two colleagues were arrested in Cairo in December 2013.
After a trial that was criticized as a sham, Fahmy was sentenced to seven years in prison but a successful appeal resulted in a retrial being ordered.
One of his colleagues — Australian Peter Greste — was abruptly released in February under a law which allows for the deportation of foreigners convicted of crimes, but Fahmy and his Egyptian co-worker Baher Mohamed remained in prison. The pair were then granted bail after their retrial began.
During a court session in Cairo today, a new technical committee, which will be analysing video evidence in the case, was sworn in and asked to report if the footage involved any fabrication.
Fahmy says the committee will not be required to say whether the videos endangered national security — a significant change from what a previous technical committee was asked to do at his original trial.
