THREE Al-Jazeera journalists will face a retrial, the Court of Cassation in Cairo ruled today after a hearing that lasted less than half an hour.

However, Canadian-Egyptian Mohammed Fahmy, Australian Peter Greste and Egyptian Baher Mohammed, who have been held since their arrest in December 2013, will remain in custody.

The trio did not attend the hearing and reporters were not allowed in until after the arguments had been made.

Defence lawyers expressed relief and said they believe that a retrial will be held within a month.

They hope for a speedy trial given the changing relationship between Egypt and Qatar, which is thought to underpin the whole case.

The news network is based in Qatar, whose government recently promised to ease tensions in the Middle East by dropping its support for Islamist groups such as Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

Relatives had been hoping for the men to be released. But legal experts said that was outside the court’s power.

The Egyptian authorities accused Al-Jazeera of acting as a mouthpiece for the Brotherhood after the July 2013 military overthrow of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi.

The station has denied the accusations and said that the journalists were doing their job.

“Baher, Peter and Mohammed have been unjustly in jail for over a year now,” Al-Jazeera said in a statement.

“The Egyptian authorities have a simple choice — free these men quickly or continue to string this out, all the while continuing this injustice and harming the image of their own country in the eyes of the world.”

Mr Greste’s lawyer Amr el-Deeb hailed the ruling as “a very good and optimistic decision.

“It will give them a second round of mitigation. Hopefully when we go to the retrial, we can defend the defendants and present adequate support to try to set them free.”

Mohammed Fahmy’s brother Adel Fahmy said that each lawyer had received just three minutes to argue their case.

Britain’s National Union of Journalists general secretary Michelle Stanistreet called the decision not to bail the three “hugely disappointing” and said that the hearing gave “no confidence in the legal process that now drags on further.”