Amal Clooney, the leading human rights barrister, was threatened with arrest by Egypian officials after she identified flaws in the country's justice system that led to the jailing of three Al Jazeera journalists, it has emerged. British-Lebanese lawyer Mrs Clooney, who married American actor George Clooney at a lavish ceremony in Venice last September, represents Mohamed Fahmy, one the three journalists convicted of terrorism in December 2013.
On Thursday, an Egyptian court ordered the retrial of the three journalists, acknowledging major problems with their initial conviction. The sentences handed to Mr Fahmy, Al Jazeera's Egyptian-Canadian bureau chief, as well as Australian former BBC journalist Peter Greste and Egyptian freelance producer Baher Mohamed, had provoked international outrage. In an interview, Mrs Clooney said a report she had co-authored on the independence of Egypt's judiciary - a politically sensitive subject in the north African country - was deemed so controversial that she was warned she could be arrested if she visited Cairo. "When I went to launch the report, first of all they stopped us from doing it in Cairo," Mrs Clooney said. "They said: 'Does the report criticise the army, the judiciary, or the government?' We said: 'Well, yes.' They said: 'Well then, you're risking arrest.'" In Egypt, insulting the judiciary is an imprisonable offence.
The document, compiled on behalf of the International Bar Association, highlights wide-ranging powers that Egypt's government can wield over judges and state prosecutors, and recommended an end to its handpicking of judges in high profile cases.
Mrs Clooney went on a fact-finding mission to Egypt to compile the report in June 2013, before its publication last February.
"That recommendation wasn't followed, and we've seen the results of that in this particular [Al Jazeera] case where you had a handpicked panel led by a judge who is known for dispensing brutal verdicts," she told the Guardian.
Mr Fahmy has enlisted Mrs Clooney as his international counsel, along with London-based barrister Mark Wassouf, after becoming dissatisfied with the quality of legal support offered by Al Jazeera.
Mrs Clooney, who is also advising Greece on return of Parthenon marbles to Athens, has made high profile calls for her client's release.
In August, she wrote: "Sentencing a political opponent to death after a show trial is no different to taking him out on the street and shooting him. In fact, it is worse because using the court system as a tool of state repression makes a mockery of the rule of law."
She has also called on the Egyptian government to release Mr Fahmy on medical grounds, after disclosing that he is suffering from Hepatitis C, as well as having lost the full use of his arm after a pre-existing shoulder injury was exacerbated by weeks spent sleeping on the prison's stone floor.
The Al Jazeera three journalists were arrested in Cairo's Marriott Hotel in December 2013 and accused of helping a "terrorist organisation".
They were sentenced to between seven and 10 years in prison last June in a politically charged case that drew the United Nations to question the independence of Egypt's judiciary.
The lengthy trial was adjudicated by a judge, Mohamed Nagy Shehata, who has become notorious for severe sentencing. He recently handed out 188 death sentences in a single trial.
But on New Year's Day, an appeals court judge ordered that the journalists be retried, offering new hope. Even if they are not acquitted, the two foreign nationals would be eligible for deportation, while all three men would be eligible for a presidential pardon.
The families of Mr Fahmy and Mr Greste have since confirmed that their lawyers have lodged an official request for the two men to be deported if they are not acquitted.
This article originally appeared at The Daily Telegraph. Copyright 2015.
