Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi hopes the case of three Al Jazeera journalists jailed for more than a year can be resolved quickly. “We are very keen on sorting this out and getting it finished as soon as possible,” El-Sisi said in an interview with Bloomberg’s Tom Keene at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland today. “We are trying very hard to find a way out within the legal framework and respect the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary.”
The detention of the three journalists–Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy, Australian Peter Greste and Egyptian Baher Mohamed–has led to a global fight for press freedom. The journalists were charged with terrorism-related offenses, sullying Egypt’s image and posing a threat to its security. Greste and Fahmy were sentenced to seven years in prison, while Mohamed received 10 years.