Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste has returned to his home country, Australia, for the first time since Egypt imprisoned him more than a year ago.
Greste, whom Egypt released and deported over the weekend, landed in Brisbane early Thursday morning.
“It’s awesome to be home. It’s absolutely awesome,” he told reporters gathered at the airport.
“This is a moment that I rehearsed in my mind at least 400 times in … the past 400 days,” he added.
“But of course this is all tempered … by a real worry” for fellow Al Jazeera journalists Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Baher Mohamed and all others convicted in the same case, Greste said. “If it’s right for me to be free, then it’s right for all of us. … Egypt now has an opportunity to show that justice doesn’t depend on your nationality.”
Greste and his colleagues were arrested in Egypt in December 2013, accused of supporting the banned Muslim Brotherhood. All three were convicted and imprisoned but have maintained their innocence.
Fahmy and Mohamed remain in prison.
Fahmy, Al Jazeera’s Cairo bureau chief who used to work for CNN, is a dual citizen of Egypt and Canada. He recently renounced his Egyptian citizenship in hopes the country would soon release him, according to his family.
Inside the airport Thursday, Greste, wearing a checkered shirt and jeans, was cheered by a crowd of dozens who had awaited his arrival. He smiled, hugged several people in the crowd and flashed peace signs with two raised hands.