Amal Alamuddin Talks About Egypt's Threat to Arrest Her
Celebrity

George Clooney's lawyer wife reveals she faces a risk of being arrested after exposing flaws in Egypt's judicial system.

AceShowbiz - George Clooney's wife Amal Alamuddin, who changed her name to Amal Clooney after marrying the actor last September, risked arrest after she pointed out some serious flaws in Egypt's judicial system. In an interview with the Guardian, the human rights barrister talked about the trial that led to the conviction of three Al Jazeera journalists.

"When I went to launch the report, first of all they stopped us from doing it in Cairo," she revealed after the journalists' appeal hearing this week. "They said: 'Does the report criticize the army, the judiciary, or the government?' We said: 'Well, yes.' They said: 'Well then, you're risking arrest.' "

Written before Amal became involved in the case, the report pointed out that Egypt's judicial system was not as independent as it could be. Amal and her co-authors suggested that officials should not be allowed to hand-select judges for some cases.

"That recommendation wasn't followed, and we've seen the results of that in this particular case where you had a handpicked panel led by a judge who is known for dispensing brutal verdicts. And this one was no different," she said.

The three Al Jazeera journalists were sentenced to between seven and ten years in prison last June by the controversial Egyptian judge Mohamed Nagy Shehata. At the trio's appeal on New Year's Day, a new judge refused to throw out the case but agreed to a retrial, after recognising problems with the initial process.

Amal, however, fears that the flaws highlighted in her report would prevent the trio from receiving a fair trial. She said, "If the idea is: well, there were errors and now there's going to be a retrial, but then the retrial operates on the same basis as the original one, that doesn't really mean much. I don't see how the prosecution can proceed again in a trial process even if the judges were to be constituted properly this time around. I don't see how they could fix the lack of evidence."

Amal added, "Unfortunately we have to conclude that we can't rely on these Egyptian court processes to achieve a fair or swift result."

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