CAIRO // A prominent Al Jazeera Arabic journalist was detained on Saturday in Germany over an Egyptian arrest warrant, the Qatar-based broadcaster reported.
Ahmed Mansour, a senior journalist with its Arabic service, was detained while trying to board a Qatar Airways flight at Berlin’s Tegel airport heading to Doha, the television network reported. It said he had previously been sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison by Egypt over allegedly torturing an unnamed lawyer in Tahrir Square in 2011, a charge both he and his employer rejected.
While not identifying Mansour by name, German police spokesman Meik Grauer said authorities had detained a 52-year-old Egyptian-British journalist and that prosecutors would look into the arrest warrant on Sunday.
In October, Al Jazeera said Interpol had rejected an Egyptian request to put out a “red notice” for Mansour’s arrest.
Mansour recently conducted an interview with the head of Jabhat Al Nusra, the Al Qaeda branch fighting in Syria’s civil war. In a Facebook post on Saturday night, the journalist said he had shown German authorities an email from Interpol saying he was not wanted by them.
Egypt and Qatar have had tense relations since 2013, when the Egyptian military ousted president Mohammed Morsi amid massive protests. Doha is a strong backer of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.
In December 2013, Egyptian security forces raided a hotel room used by Al Jazeera English, arresting three journalists and later convicting of them of being part of a terrorist group and airing falsified footage intended to damage national security in a widely criticised trial.
Acting bureau chief Mohamed Fahmy, who has Canadian citizenship, and Egyptian producer Baher Mohammed are free on bail amid a retrial. Australian journalist Peter Greste was deported in February.
