News Digest

Detained Al-Jazeera journalist to remain in German custody

A prominent Al-Jazeera journalist will remain in German custody for a second night, prosecutors said Sunday, adding they have not yet decided whether to extradite him to Egypt or set him free. As dozens of supporters protested Sunday in front of the Berlin court building where Ahmed Mansour was being held, his lawyer, Fazli Altin, called for the journalist’s immediate release, saying that Germany was getting involved in a politically tainted case. Mansour, 52, a well-known journalist with the Qatar-based broadcaster’s Arabic service, was detained at Berlin’s Tegel airport on Saturday on an Egyptian arrest warrant, his lawyers said. Mansour, who holds dual Egyptian-British nationality, was trying to board a Qatar Airways flight to Doha, the station reported.

Egypt has launched a politically motivated campaign against Al-Jazeera and is now abusing the international system.

Sherif Mansour, the group’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator

Mansour’s detention is the latest in a long series of legal entanglements between Egypt and satellite news channels. According to court documents, he was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison, alongside two Muslim Brotherhood members and an Islamic preacher, for allegedly torturing a lawyer in Tahrir Square in 2011, a charge both he and the channel rejects. Mansour, who is known for his “Without Borders” program, recently conducted an interview with the head of the Nusra Front, the al-Qaida branch fighting in Syria’s civil war, which aired last month from an undisclosed location in Syria. German media reported that Mansour was in Germany for an interview he conducted here for his show.