Egypt frees Al-Jazeera journalist

Egypt have released and deported Al-Jazeera journalist Peter Greste, after he was arrested in December 2013 and imprisoned in June 2014 on charges that included spreading false news.

Cairo airport officials reported that Greste had left on a plane for Cyprus at about 16:00pm.

The Australian journalist was jailed with two other Al-Jazeera workers – Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohamed.

The three were accused of collaborating with the banned Muslim Brotherhood after the Egyptian military’s overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi in 2013. The three men denied the charges against them and said they were simply reporting the news.

In November, Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi said that he was considering the possibility of granting pardons to the two foreign al-Jazeera journalists. In January, Egypt's top court ordered a retrial of all three men.

An Egyptian Interior Ministry statement said it had been "decided to extradite Australian journalist Peter Greste... to his country today, 1 February (2015)... after the cabinet's approval, in enforcement of the Presidential Decree no. 140 for the year 2014 regarding the rulings on extraditing defendants and deporting the convicts".

In a statement, Greste’s brother Andrew said: "We're ecstatic that Peter has been released and we now ask if the world could respect his privacy, to give him time to appreciate his freedom before he faces the media."

Al-Jazeera said it welcomed Greste’s release and demanded that Fahmy and Baher also be freed.

"We're pleased for Peter and his family that they are to be reunited. It has been an incredible and unjustifiable ordeal for them, and they have coped with incredible dignity,” said Mostefa Souag, acting director-general of al-Jazeera media network in a statement. "We will not rest until Baher and Mohamed also regain their freedom.

"The Egyptian authorities have it in their power to finish this properly today, and that is exactly what they must do."