Egypt Releases Al-Jazeera Journalist

CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian authorities on Saturday freed an Al-Jazeera journalist after more than four years in detention, his family lawyer said. Mahmoud Hussein walked free from a police station Saturday afternoon, a few days after a court ordered his conditional release pending investigations into charges of publishing false information and belonging to a banned group, lawyer Gamal Eid said. The lawyer said Hussein will have to report to a nearby police station twice a week. The journalist’s daughter, el-Zahraa Hussein, confirmed the news in a Facebook post, saying her father had arrived home. Al-Jazeera also reported his release. Hussein, an Egyptian working for the Qatar-based satellite network, was detained at the Cairo airport in December 2016, when he arrived on a family vacation from Doha, the network said. Since the 2013 ouster of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi, Egyptian authorities and pro-government media have portrayed the Al-Jazeera network as Egypt’s national enemy for its sympathy toward Islamists, especially the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group.