Australian prime minister says he hopes Al Jazeera reporters will be freed soon

CANBERRA, Australia – Australia’s prime minister thanked the Egyptian president Tuesday for his help in releasing an Australian reporter from prison and expressed hope that the reporter’s two Al Jazeera colleagues would also be freed soon.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott spoke to President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi by telephone for the first time since Australian Al Jazeera reporter Peter Greste was released from an Egyptian prison over the weekend, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

“The prime minister thanked President el-Sisi for his effort to bring Peter Greste’s imprisonment to an end,” the statement said.

It added that Abbott expressed hope that Greste’s colleagues, Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohamed, would be released soon.

Greste, 49, is due to land in his hometown of Brisbane on Thursday.

Greste, Fahmy, and Mohamed were arrested in Cairo in December 2013 and later convicted over their coverage of the violent crackdown on Islamist protests that year.

In Canada, John Baird said Monday _ before news broke that he was resigning as foreign minister _that Fahmy’s release was imminent. Fahmy has relinquished his Egyptian citizenship as prerequisite to his deportation.

Prison officials and Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency said Greste’s release resulted from a “presidential approval” and was co-ordinated with the Australian Embassy.