For the past few days, the internet has been rightly outraged at verdict against Australian journalist Peter Greste and two Al Jazeera colleagues in Egypt, who were sentenced to seven years in prison for the crime of “spreading false news”.
Information about the trial has been slowly emerging since then, and The Toronto Sun recently reported that among the more bizarre pieces of evidence presented against the journalists was Gotye‘s hit song ‘Somebody That I Used To Know.’
It is not clear how or why the prosecution latched on to Gotye, or what point they were hoping to prove, but reports say that they played a “poor recording” of the song, without offering any further explanation.
The song was one of several baffling pieces of evidence presented over the course of the trial. Prosecutors also showed footage of some sheep at a farm, and photos of Greste’s parents on holiday in Europe.
They also showed footage of a documentary that Greste himself worked on about soccer in Egypt, arguing that it showed the true, peaceful version of the country, in contrast the conflict that the journalist would later report on.
#AJtrial – A better close-up of this clearly photoshopped image of @Repent11, which actually features Marshal Tantawi pic.twitter.com/l92qEduIWh
— Patrick Kingsley (@PatrickKingsley) May 22, 2014
Picture: Frederick M Brown via Getty Images
