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Random House Canada “still intends to publish” Mohamed Fahmy’s The Marriott Cell

mohamedfahmyRandom House Canada will continue with plans to publish The Marriott Cell by Mohamed Fahmy, the imprisoned Cairo bureau chief of Al Jazeera English. The book, slated for publication this fall, tells the story of Fahmy’s arrest in December 2013 and subsequent incarceration in Egypt’s maximum-security Scorpion Prison.

Following an unsuccessful retrial, which ended Aug. 29, Fahmy was sentenced to three years in prison on terrorism charges. The Canadian government has formally applied for either a pardon or deportation for the journalist.

Tracey Turriff, vice-president of publicity and senior vice-president of corporate communications for Penguin Random House Canada, says in a statement: “We still intend to publish, and will figure out how to proceed no matter the horribly unjust circumstances. We hope that the Canadian government’s appeal to send him home will be successful.”

In April, Random House Canada announced that executive publisher and vice-president Louise Dennys had acquired world rights to The Marriott Cell, with an introduction by Fahmy’s lawyer, Amal Clooney.