I was threatened with arrest in Egypt, says Amal Clooney

LONDON: British human rights lawyer Amal Clooney claimed in an interview published on Saturday that she was threatened with arrest in Egypt after identifying flaws in the judicial system that later contributed to the convictions of three Al-Jazeera journalists.

Clooney, a rights lawyer who married Hollywood star George Clooney in a lavish Venice ceremony last year, helped compile a report for the International Bar Association in February 2014 that raised questions about the independence of judges and prosecutors in Egypt.

"When I went to launch the report, first of all they stopped us from doing it in Cairo," she told a British newspaper. "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'," told Clooney, who is representing one of the trio of Al-Jazeera reporters detained in Cairo.

The report, based on a fact-finding mission, warned about the wide powers that ministers had over judges and highlighted a record of selective prosecutions.

http://ift.tt/179YeUP human rights,Amal Clooney

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