BERLIN: A leading Al Jazeera journalist was arrested at a Berlin airport yesterday at the request of Egypt, a lawyer for satellite network said, a move he described as part of a crackdown by Cairo on the channel.
International lawyer Saad Djebbar said Ahmed Mansour, one of the senior-most journalists on the channel’s Arabic service, had been abruptly and unexpectedly arrested.
A spokesman for German Federal Police confirmed that a 52-year-old man was arrested at Tegel airport following an international arrest warrant from Egyptian authorities.
He said the general public prosecutor was checking the man’s identity and possible extradition to Egypt.
Cairo’s criminal court sentenced Mansour, who has dual Egyptian and British citizenship, to 15 years in prison in absentia last year on the charge of torturing a lawyer in Tahrir Square in 2011.
Al Jazeera said at the time the charge was false and an attempt to silence Mansour. “This is a very serious development,” said Djebbar.
“We knew that the Egyptians were going to set such a trap to harass our journalists and that is what has happened.”
Mansour was arrested as he tried to board a Qatar Airways flight from Berlin to Doha, Djebbar said.
Egyptian authorities accuse Al Jazeera of being a mouthpiece of Muslim Brotherhood President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi toppled in 2013 when he was army chief.
Al Jazeera is also locked in a legal battle with Egyptian authorities to try to secure $150m in compensation for what it says was damage to its media business inflicted by Cairo’s military-backed rulers.
Reuters
