IOWE MUM & DAD' MY LIFE

Peter Greste was freed from an Egyptian jail, partly thanks to his family

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It's 10 years since Australian journalist Peter Greste walked free from an Egyptian jail, after a harrowing 400 days behind bars.

On December 29, 2013, while working as a foreign correspondent in Cairo for the Al Jazeera news organisation, he was arrested and wrongly accused of being a terrorist.

Sentenced to seven years in jail, he was finally released on February 1, 2015, and flown home to Australia.

“The whole experience changed my life,” the award-winning journalist tells Woman's Day. “It ruined my career as a foreign correspondent, I'm a convicted terrorist!” adds Peter, now a university lecturer based in Brisbane.

“But the ordeal made me recognise I’m far stronger than I'd ever imagined,” he reflects.

“If you'd have asked me beforehand how I'd cope being imprisoned in Egypt, I'd have said I couldn’t handle four days, much less 400. But it turns out that I can!”

Now Peter's fascinating story has come to life on the big screen, in new film The Correspondent, starring Richard Roxburgh as Peter, out this week. “Richard did a stunning job playing me, an absolutely stellar job!” Peter enthuses.

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