Today, former Al Jazeera English bureau chief Mohamed Fahmy expected to learn the outcome of his second trial on charges of spreading false news and supporting the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

"How do I sleep knowing the judge could send me back to prison in a matter of hours for a crime I did not commit?" Fahmy tweeted last night.

But for a second time, the verdict has been delayed. He and coaccused,  journalist Baher Mohamed, learned that the judgement won't be delivered until August 29.

Fahmy took to Twitter to express his displeasure.

https://twitter.com/MFFahmy11/status/627766620413407232

They were supposed to hear the decision on July 30, but the ruling was moved to today because the judge was reportedly ill.

Fahmy's lawyer, Amal Clooney, issued a statement saying Fahmy was supposed to be home in Canada a long time ago.

"Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy must wait another excruciating month to find out if he faces a new prison term in Cairo," Clooney wrote. "The verdict in the Al Jazeera retrial has been postponed twice this week, most recently this morning until August 29.

"It has not escaped observers that this comfortably postdates the visit of US Secretary of State John Kerry as well as the planned celebrations of the new Suez Canal waterway scheduled for August 6, with various world leaders in attendance," Clooney continued. "The verdict may be coming later; but the world will still be watching."

Clooney, who's married to actor and director George Clooney, called the situation a "show trial". She cited Reporters Without Borders statistics noting that Egypt has the fourth highest number of journalists jailed in the world and the "worst record" since 1990.

Fahmy and his wife are hoping to move to Vancouver, where he lived in the 1990s, and he has lined up a job as an adjunct professor at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism.

Yesterday, the Conservative government's minister of state (foreign affairs), Lynne Yelich, urged the Egyptian government to use all of its tools to permit Fahmy's "immediate return" to Canada.

"Canada calls on the Egyptian government to protect the rights of all individuals, including journalists, in keeping with the spirit of Egypt’s new constitution and its transition to democracy," Yelich said.

Fahmy spent more than 400 days in jail after the first trial judge convicted him, Mohamed, and a third former Al Jazeera journalist, Australian Peter Greste. 

An appeal court ordered a retrial and Fahmy and Mohamed were let out on bail. Greste was deported.

"At that time the Egyptian authorities had told Fahmy and Canadian officials that he too would be deported through the same procedure if he renounced his Egyptian citizenship," Clooney said in her statement. "The renunciation was published through official channels in preparation for his release. But in the days that followed Greste’s departure, the Egyptians made an inexplicable U-turn. Fahmy was not deported, and on February 12 he was dragged back to court to face a lengthy new trial."

Since then, Fahmy has filed a lawsuit against Al Jazeera in B.C. Supreme Court.