Mohamed Fahmy, imprisoned in Egypt, is suffering from hepatitis C and an injured shoulder, his brother says.
The family of jailed Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy is seeking his temporary release from an Egyptian jail for medical treatment, amid new signs that the country's President will not step in to resolve the case.
Mr. Fahmy, Cairo bureau chief for Al Jazeera English, is suffering from hepatitis C and an injured shoulder, his brother says.
"[Mohamed] is not well, but he's trying to stay strong," Adel Fahmy said in an interview on Sunday, describing his brother's condition as "life threatening."
Mr. Fahmy was arrested in December and convicted with two colleagues of conspiring with Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood to spread false news. The journalists' prosecution and conviction have been denounced internationally and condemned by human-rights groups as a sham.
Supporters hoped Egypt's President would use his powers to intervene and extend a presidential pardon to obtain their release.
But in new remarks about the case – his first to foreign media since he assuming power in June – President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi insisted he can't interfere in the judicial process.
The President told The Associated Press that had he been in power at the time of the journalists' arrests, "I never would have let the issue go so far. I would have deported them."
Adel Fahmy said he was disappointed by the remarks, which echo earlier statements along the same line by the President. Mohamed Fahmy is a dual Canadian-Egyptian citizen but is being tried as an Egyptian, so the notion of deporting him is a non-starter, Adel Fahmy said.
"You can't deport a person who has an Egyptian passport," he said. "And my brother didn't do anything wrong to be deported. He didn't commit any crime."
The family is hoping for the approval of Egypt's prosecutor-general to have Mohamed Fahmy released for medical treatment while he awaits his next court appearance.
Adel Fahmy says his brother's shoulder, fractured just before he was taken into custody, has not healed properly and he is unable to raise his arm "more than 90 degrees."
Adel Fahmy is also concerned that his brother's liver is deteriorating as a result of the hepatitis C virus.
Lawyers for Mr. Fahmy filed an appeal in Egyptian court last month in a last-ditch bid to free him, either through a retrial or the overturning of the guilty verdict, but no date has been set to hear it.
Mr. el-Sissi has earned criticism for overseeing a brutal crackdown on dissent. Egypt's judiciary has sentenced hundreds of people to death in mass trials while more than a dozen journalists, including Mr. Fahmy, remain in jail.
But the President said his actions were aimed at fighting Islamic militancy and saving the country from civil war. He told AP that Egypt was a model for combatting terrorism, urging the U.S.-led coalition to fight the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria to take note.
"More than a year ago, I warned that the region was heading to great danger from extremist thought," he said. "It didn't receive proper attention until the events in Iraq took place and the Islamic State swept over the Iraqi-Syrian borders."