Prominent Al Jazeera Arabic news anchor Ahmed Mansour, who was arrested on Saturday in Berlin’s Tegel airport, has been released from custody after being held over the weekend, according to an update by the network.
The Berlin court also ruled against extraditing the Al Jazeera journalist, as per a request from Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Badr Abdelatty, who called for him to be sent to Egypt to face criminal charges. In 2014, Mansour was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison by Cairo’s criminal court on the charge of torturing a lawyer in Tahrir Sqaure in 2011.
According to an interview with Mansour on Al Jazeera Arabic on Saturday, he was arrested whilst trying to board a Qatar Airways flight to Doha under an Egyptian arrest warrant. This is the latest in a series of tensions and legal conflicts between Egyptian authorities and the Qatar-based network.
Mansour also divulged in the interview that, before he was detained, he had been filming a show in Germany about Egyptian President Sisi’s recent visit to the country. The visit sparked some controversy amongst German politicians
It is suspected that Mansour was potentially detained on the basis of an order by international criminal police organisation Interpol, requested by the Egyptian government.
Upon his arrest, he allegedly showed the police a document from Interpol, stating that the organisation had rejected Egypt’s request for his arrest, and that he is not wanted on any charge.
It is still unclear as to the involvement of Interpol. Meik Gauer, a spokesman for the federal police in Berlin told the Guardian: “All countries that put out an international arrest warrant that is also valid in Germany go via the Bundeskriminalamt (federal criminal police office)
“The BKA then puts the arrest warrant into its system, so that the federal police at the border control also has access to it. Our contact is not Interpol, but the BKA….I don’t know if Interpol had anything to do with it.”
Mansour has since claimed that the arrest was a German initiative, and not related to the Interpol request submitted by Egypt. He has also suggested that his arrest is the result of a deal between Sisi and Germany.
The Egyptian state-owned news agency MENA, which works within the Ministry of Interior, announced on Sunday that it had previously submitted a general list of every person convicted by Egyptian courts living abroad to all state members of Interpol.
To maintain political neutrality, Interpol’s charter forbids it from undertaking interventions or activities of a political, military, religious or racial nature or involving itself in disputes over such matters.
The latest clash between Egyptian authorities and Al Jazeera comes after three of the network’s journalists – Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed – were released by Egypt on bail after spending more than 400 days in prison.
The three journalists were accused of defaming Egypt and spreading false news, as well as operating in the country without a journalistic permit.
Fahmy has since decided to sue the network, accusing his former employer of negligence and misconduct, which he believes led to his arrest by Egyptian authorities.
Comments (14)
You mean Qatar’s PR arm implicated in the death of Egyptian citizens while the Qatar’s hides behind the American Naval base.
The Arab world should remember Qatar’s role.
i heard they shot bullets from their cameras and microphones
If my country (USA) had a party called the Christian Brotherhood imposing their religion on me, I would hope our military would kill them all.
The problem is that the MB are well funded and protected by the US and EU admins. These entities are plotting with one another to destroy and divide the entire ME. The fight is not just the MB.
Yea I know, keeping the Sunni – Shia etc. conflict going by taking sides but arming both depending on the area of which side is sleeping with the West and Israel. You have to admit the only reason Muslims kill one another is because they are in a self serving religion which is all religions so they are killing each other over slight differential discriminating beliefs. Religion has nothing to do with God so the problem is themselves.
Shia and Sunni have been living in piece for 1400 years up until recent. What’s going in the ME is foreign intervention and funding of terrorism by western countries. Religion especially Islam has nothing to do with terrorism. Whether you understand it or not i’m just stating facts. Here in Egypt we’re not just fighting Brotherhood Fascism, we are fighting “super power countries” who support Brotherhood till this minute. As you can see Germany’s admins are one of them and are nothing less than a shameful terrorist supporting entity. Germany is a Christian country and using your logic am I going to say that Christians are now an ally of Moslems together trying to burn Egypt? The answer is “No” as we Egyptians understand that terrorism and harboring terrorism as what Germany clearly had done has nothing to do with being Christian or Moslem. Terrorists are criminals who twist religious facts, misinterpret it and use it as a weapon to conduct their terrorist acts. Whether they stem from the KKK or MB they are simply criminal mercenaries nothing more. – God bless you.
We do, it’s called the Republican Party. They have a right to free speech, of course.
Thank God we don’t have the military and police killing members of political parties just for being members.
Democrats are Christian also, Republicans are basically the anti Christ for morons who vote for them, they support 2 things that keep the Christian morons in place and voting for them, anti-gay and anti-abortion but everything else they do is not the teachings of Jesus. Republican Christians are suckers ! You have to be a moron to be in a religion anyway.
I am amazed at how someone living in the states can be such a salafi pig like yourself.
We have freedom in the USA. You don’t get arrested and tortured for your opinions, like in Egypt.
But in a salafi state you’d get stoned for it. Yet here you are, a salafi who supports the MB.
What I wanna know is how an American such as yourself became such a radicalized ISIS loving d0uche.
minymina you are unbelievable the guy is taliking about being able to state your opinion and you accuse him of mb membership salifi lover
we dont have salafi but we have military regime and they have killed jailed and tortured their own people for 60 years because they want to see the end of military rule and enforce civilian rule
mkvali, me and this guy constantly argue on this site. I’m well aware that he’s a salafi and he even admitted to it at one point. The reason why I pointed it out is for the mer hypocrisy of the $h!t he writes.