‘The major needs to see you’ … Peter Greste’s walk to freedom

PETER Greste was jogging in a dank exercise corridor in Tora Prison when a prison guard approached him with a matter of urgency.

Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste.

PETER Greste was jogging up and down a dank, narrow exercise corridor in Cairo’s Tora Prison on Sunday morning when a guard approached him with a matter of urgency. “The major needs to see you,” the guard said.

Needing to be seen by Tora prison chiefs is not always a welcome directive for inmates of one of the world’s most notorious jails, where the award-winning Australian journalist had lan­guished for 400 days, convicted for reporting “false news” and endangering Egypt’s national security.

“I’ll just finish my run,” Greste replied to the guard. The journalist’s brief morning runs had become sacred respite from a blisteringly hot 4m by 5m cell, so cramped he and his cellmates, fellow Al Jazeera journalists Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, often used a bed sheet to screen “time-out” spaces.

“No,” the guard said. “He needs to see you now.”

It was fitting that Greste’s first step towards real freedom would be taken in the exercise corridor where, every dark and agonising day, he would stare out a small, square prison window and dream of it. Here, with each passing daily run, his dream narrowed in focus, from a long-rumoured full government pardon for him and his beloved cellmates to a simple dinner that wasn’t mashed beans to a single wish to see the sun go down.

Some days he’d see only blue sky out that corridor window. Some days he’d see only bars.

Greste didn’t shower, didn’t change out of his running clothes. He went straight to the prison major’s ­office to be informed he was a free man. He was being unconditionally released by order of Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, under a new law allowing ­foreign prisoners to be deported.

And every last letter, email, tweet, text, essay, news piece and protest placard the world wrote on his behalf had paid dividends, not of gold but of time: hours, days, weeks of priceless, perfect freedom.

Greste knew not to delay his departure. He packed 400 days’ worth of prison belongings — ­letters, university correspondence texts, keepsakes — in a matter of 10 minutes. He farewelled his cellmates; his new family who, for now at least, would remain inside Tora Prison, their fates unclear.

Fahmy, who holds Egyptian and Canadian citizenship, had also applied for ­deportation under new Egyptian laws, but Egyptian-born Moha­med must rely on a retrial for an early release from his 10-year ­sentence.

Mohamed considers Greste an older brother.

In August, he asked Greste’s parents, Lois and Juris, to attend the birth of his baby son, Haroun, and gave his son an introductory letter: “The moment you will ­arrive you will meet two great Australians … together we are sharing this struggle, and together we will celebrate your birth. They are your family and their sons are your father’s brothers, so don’t be shy of them.”

Now Greste faced the bittersweet reality of taking his freedom, but leaving his Egyptian-born brother behind, in the cell where Baher taught him Arabic; where the cellmates fashioned tenpin bowling games from scrounged bottle caps; where they ate fresh bread Greste created from yeast cultures; where they pored over letters from family; where they dared to imagine the rushed, sublime exit Greste was making now.

Embassy officials were waiting for Greste. An even more welcome face was at Cairo airport: his brother Mike, a Queensland cop whose default ­facial expression is to smile, but who hadn’t had cause to do so much in the past 400 days. Yet he was surely smiling when their plane landed in ­Cyprus hours later, en route to the ­family’s home town of Brisbane. And he was surely smiling when he shared a cold beer with his brother that night. In the swirling chaos of departure, Peter Greste took a breath and phoned his parents in Brisbane. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “It was all so quick. I didn’t have time to think.”

“It is, indeed, a good morning,” said a joyous Juris Greste, addressing Brisbane media yesterday morning beside his wife, Lois, and son Andrew, a northern NSW cotton farmer.

A former architect and OAM nearing his 80th year, Juris Greste wore chequered slacks, red shoes and a red and white fedora straight out of Guys and Dolls. His feet were unconsciously tapping dance steps beneath the press conference table as the family spoke of the downs, downs, downs and final, merciful up of the past 400 days. “A day that I felt would never come,” said Lois Greste.

Andrew Greste would not be drawn on the specific role played by Tony Abbott or Foreign Minister Julie Bishop in the release, but he did single out Bishop. “I don’t know if it’s time for post-mortems yet, but it was a team effort,” he said. “As we’ve said all along, it’s been an unmapped pathway, and there’s been no recipe or clear track on which way to go and how to go about doing it. Everyone’s played a part and I guess we’ll never know what the key point, the trigger point, the turning point was to … get him out.”

It was not until Peter Greste was on the plane to Cyprus that his family ­allowed themselves to relax, and to celebrate. “Egypt is a very uncertain and unpredictable place,” Andrew Greste said. “Until he was on that plane, anything could have happened … He wasn’t out of there until he was out of there.”

He said his brother was a “genuinely passionate” and committed journalist who would not rest until his two co-workers were also free. “He’s not going to forget his two other colleagues,” he said. “There’s no doubt his excitement is tempered and restrained and will be until those guys are free. He won’t give up until Baher and Mohamed are out of there either.”

All three Grestes said Peter Greste would not be leaving the country again without a fight. Beer and prawns would be on the menu, and Lois Greste said she was reserving some “huge hugs” .

“We didn’t think we’d be on this road for so long,” Andrew Greste said. “When Peter was first arrested, we thought this would blow over in a matter of days (or weeks at most).”

While Lois Greste said she was sure her son would recover well, she urged the need to give him space and time. “He was in a state of finding it quite difficult to believe,” she said. “He said it all happened so fast, so quick, he’s still absorbing it all, and it’s going to take him several days.” She said he would return to Australia “when he’s ready to come back, and not before”.

And there was no reason for the family to rush yesterday. Peter Greste was free, and his Brisbane sunset wasn’t going anywhere.