One year ago today Egyptian police burst in and raided the hotel room Al Jazeera English were using as an office.

Acting bureau chief Mohamed Fahmy and Australian correspondent Peter Greste were questioned for an hour before being taken to a police station.

Hours after the hotel raid, dozens of officers wearing masks and holding guns turned up at the house of Baher Mohamed, a freelance producer who at the time was working for AJE.

Mohamed's wife Jehan says special forces came in over the walls of the house while others created a human chain around the premises.

It was 3am and they were sleeping, but woke up when they heard a shot being fired - one of the officers shot their dog Gatsby in the leg as they entered.

Jehan, who was pregnant at the time, saw the dog lying on the floor in a pool of blood as officers broke down the front door.

She grabbed her two young children who were lying frozen with fear in their beds. The officers raided the house, flipping over mattresses and breaking cupboards and drawers.

After an hour, the officers took Mohamed, put a hood over his head and threw him in the back of a police van. She did not hear from him for a day and a half after that.

Mohamed and Fahmy were kept in solitary confinement in Tora Prison for weeks after their arrest.

"We've spent a year in sadness and we don't know why he's in prison. The whole household is sad in a way I can't describe," said Jehan.

"We are adults, we can take it and understand, but what have the children done to deserve this?" she told us, unable to hold back the tears.

The three journalists were charged with spreading false news and belonging to or aiding the Muslim Brotherhood, deemed a terrorist organisation.

After a four-month trial, the judge handed the three men seven-year sentences, and Mohamed an additional three years for having a spent bullet in his possession.

His family told us he had picked it up when he was covering the uprising in Libya in 2011. Greste's parents say being in the courtroom was one of the hardest moments in this nightmare year.

"Seeing Peter in handcuffs, dressed in white inside a cage, like a caged animal, it was just shock and horror," his mother Lois said.

Rights organisations called the trial a "show trial" that was politically motivated and had no legal merit.

The prosecution showed irrelevant evidence - holiday photos and even reports produced by other networks, including Sky News Arabia.

At the time of the arrests, the Egyptian military had successfully ousted Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi in a popular coup.

That sparked a major government crackdown on all forms of opposition and media seen as unfriendly to the new military rulers, especially any with links to the Brotherhood.

Marriage from behind bars

Qatar, the owners of Al Jazeera, were well-known supporters of the Brotherhood and were offering refuge to senior leaders escaping the crackdown in Egypt.

Mohamed, Fahmy and Greste may have been used as pawns in a larger battle between Egypt and Qatar. In recent months, relations between the two countries have improved, which may help their case.

Fahmy's fiancee Marwa Omara says she knows there have been positive signs with the Qatar-Egypt reconciliation, but she is afraid to get her hopes up.

They were planning on getting married in April but had to postpone their plans after his arrest.

Now she insists they are getting married, even if has to be behind bars: "It's a message to the whole world that he is innocent and I believe in his innocence."

"Even if he has to spend the next seven years in prison I want to be his wife."

The three men are appealing their sentence on January 1st - but if a retrial is granted it could take months for another verdict.

Timeline of Events:

• 29 December 2013: Three Al Jazeera English journalists were arrested. Mohamed Fahmy, Peter Greste and Baher Mohamed were charged with spreading false news, aiding or belonging to a terrorist organisation and operating without a permit.
• Al Jazeera denied all of the charges against its journalists.
• 20 February 2014: Trial begins of the "Marriott Cell" - the name Egyptian authorities gave the case after the journalists were found working at the Marriot Hotel in Cairo.
• Alongside the journalists, students who were protesting against the ousting of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi were also put on trial.
• In total, 20 people were involved in the Al Jazeera trial, 11 were tried in absentia.
• 23 June 2014: The three journalists were convicted of terrorism in Egypt, as a result of their reporting.
• Fahmy and Greste were sentenced to seven years in prison, while Mohamed got an additional three years for possession of a spent bullet he picked up at a protest in Libya when he was covering the uprising there.
• Six other AJ staff were sentenced in absentia to ten years - the maximum penalty. Only two of the group of 20 were acquitted - students Anas Mohamed El Beltagy and Shady Abdelhamid.
• 1 January 2015: The appeal process for the three journalists is due to start. At this point they will have spent just over a year in prison.