Mr Greste, who had won international awards for his work with the BBC, and Mr Fahmy were arrested in a police raid on their temporary offices in suites at the Marriott on Dec 29, 2013.  Mr Mohamed, an Egyptian freelance producer, was arrested from his home on the same day. During the raid, police shot and injured his pet dog, Gatsby.  The men have spent the last year inside Cairo’s Tora prison complex, a sprawling fortress on the edge of the desert.  The journalists were accused of helping a "terrorist organisation" - the Muslim Brotherhood - by publishing lies that harmed the national interest and supplying money, equipment and information to 16 Egyptians. Although a number of Egyptians were convicted with the three on a variety of charges, the precise relationship alleged was in many cases never spelled out.  The three’s initial trial was a long drawn-out and often confusing process, with evidence drawn seemingly at random from the men’s laptops, including video footage of wild-life from Kenya, where Mr Greste was normally based, and images from before the men’s time working for Al-Jazeera's English-language channel.  At the time of the arrests, Egyptian state media were in the middle of an aggressive campaign denouncing Qatar for its support for the Brotherhood. Al-Jazeera Arabic in particular was accused of being overly sympathetic to the organisation, which had run Egypt during the ill-fated rule of President Mohammed Morsi.  Mr Sisi overthrew Mr Morsi in a military coup in July 2013.  In recent weeks, there has been a mild rapprochement between the two states, part of a wider attempt to heal divisions between Qatar and Egypt’s financial sponsors in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.  Al-Jazeera has also suspended its Egypt-focused channel Mubasher Misr, which had particularly angered the authorities and been banned, in a move some saw as a sign of imminent compromise.  The severity of the sentences - seven years for all three, plus an extra three years for Mr Mohammed for being in possession of a spent bullet - drew harsh criticism from western nations.  It also showed the limits at the time of their influence over Egypt’s new regime, but has since become a major diplomatic head-ache for Mr Sisi, who finds the case raised repeatedly as he attempts to establish his credibility with world leaders.  Lawyers close to the case suggest that even if the journalists' appeal does not result in an acquittal, the political will exists within the Egyptian administration to get rid of a problem which has tarnished its reputation internationally.  They say the appeal court judge is unlikely to dismiss the case out of hand but may order a retrial.  Mr Sisi has also decreed that foreign prisoners can serve out their sentences in foreign countries, raising the possibility that Mr Greste and Mr Fahmy might be freed, leaving Mr Mohammed behind to an uncertain fate.  His wife, Jehan, who was pregnant at the time of the police raid, said that she was trying not to look forward. “Nobody should anticipate anything,” she said. “As for Baher, he cannot cling to a hope which is shattered again  “There is no coping with what happened, my husband was imprisoned for no crime. He did nothing more than his job.”
Appeal opens for Peter Greste, Mohammed Fahmy, and Baher Mohamed as ties warm   between Egypt and Al-Jazeera owners Qatar