Reporters' Families Face Long Wait For Justice

The judge at Cairo's highest court of appeal decided not to let journalists into the short session.

His decision to grant an appeal was on procedural grounds - the judge's remit was to see whether due process was followed during the original trial rather than rule on the guilt or innocence of the men.

Outside the courtroom, the families of the three Al Jazeera journalists - Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy, Australian Peter Greste and Egyptian Baher Mohamed - had mixed feelings.

Fahmy's fiancee told Sky News she knew the granting of the appeal was the most likely outcome, but was hoping for more.

His brother, Adel, told us: "I thought maybe they would also be allowed out on bail so Mohamed could come home with us today."

Releasing the men at this stage was a long-shot - the judge would have had to suspend the sentence first, which is very rare.

But the recent warming of relations between Qatar (which owns Al Jazeera) and Egypt offered some hope that the case would be dismissed.

Qatar was a well-known supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and gave refuge to some of their senior leaders following the popular coup that ousted Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi.

Relations hit rock bottom, with ambassadors pulled and a hostile war of words.

But in recent months Qatar has made overtures towards Egypt - accepting the rule of President Abdel Fattah el Sisi and, in public, stopped its outward support for the Brotherhood.

Al Jazeera also shut down its Egyptian channel, which was known for criticising the new military regime in Egypt and being sympathetic towards the Muslim Brotherhood.

Saudi Arabia has been key to this turn around, encouraging the rapprochement between Egypt and Qatar and helping arrange high level meetings between representatives of the two countries.

Saudi has considerable influence over Egypt because of the aid it supplies the country, and even if the warming of relations is cosmetic the hope was that it will eventually help the journalists be released.

President Sisi has said he won't interfere with the work of the judiciary, so a pardon during the proceedings looks unlikely.

A new deportation law could be used to deport Fahmy to Canada and Greste to Australia, and help President Sisi save face with the public while easing international pressure.

But the deportation law can't help Egyptian journalist Mohamed.

The next step is that another court will set a date for the retrial. Defence lawyers say they expect it will be within a month.

But it could still take some time for another verdict and the journalists have already spent over a year in prison.

The hope now is that the trial is expedited, but the fear is they will spend many more months unjustly behind bars.