A PROMINENT Egyptian-British journalist detained in Berlin on an Egyptian arrest warrant has accused Germany of acting as a tool of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s regime.
Ahmed Mansour, a well-known talk show host on Al-Jazeera’s broadcast service, was last night held for a second night after he was arrested at the capital’s airport on Saturday as he tried to board a flight to Doha. Mr Mansour had been sentenced in
absentia in Egypt in 2014 to 15 years in prison over allegedly torturing an unnamed lawyer in Tahrir Square during the uprising in 2011, a charge both he and the channel rejected. Al-Jazeera said at the time the charge was false and an attempt to silence Mr Mansour, known to viewers across the Arab world.
The 52-year-old journalist was ordered to remain in custody yesterday pending a court decision on whether to release or extradite him.
The reason for Germany’s decision to pursue Mr Mansour remains unclear. His lawyer expressed surprise that he had been detained at all as Interpol had not officially asked for the arrest.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has been more outspoken than most on Egypt’s human rights record, resorting to public criticism at a meeting with Mr Sisi in Berlin earlier this month.
In a video aired by the Doha-based pan-Arab satellite channel, Mr Mansour said he had been told by police that his arrest was “based on a German order, and not due to an Interpol order”.
He went on to say: “The question now is how have the German government and Interpol become tools in the hands of a bloodthirsty regime in Egypt that came to power through a coup, and is led by the terrorist Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.”
His lawyer, Fazli Altin, called for the journalist’s immediate release, saying that Germany was getting involved in a politically tainted case.
Reporters Without Borders, the press freedom watchdog, said Mr Mansour’s arrest was the result of “Egypt’s terrible revenge against journalists that cross the regime”, adding that if Germany did extradite him, “it will be putting itself at service of a dictatorial regime and will dishonour itself”.
Egypt has mounted a searing crackdown against dissidents of all political stripes since Mr Sisi’s regime came to power in a military coup. Although it has targeted journalists from across the political spectrum, particular ire has been reserved for the Al-Jazeera network, which is owned by Qatar.
Three Al-Jazeera journalists, including Australian national Peter Greste and Canadian Mohamed Fahmy, were arrested in Cairo in 2013 and sentenced to up to 10 years in prison on charges of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.
Mr Mansour had recently visited Syria for a rare interview with the head of Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliated group fighting alongside western-backed rebels in Syria.
While the reasoning behind his arrest remains murky, it will be seen as a worrying sign for other Egyptians in Europe who have been convicted in absentia.
Several senior members of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood have relocated to London and other capitals in the two years since Egypt’s military coup propelled their first freely elected president, Mohamed Morsi, into a set of legal proceedings which culminated in a death sentence this week.
Sondos Asem, a 28-year-old former presidential aide who now studies at Oxford University, was sentenced to death last month, alongside Morsi.
Mr Mansour is not the first British or Irish citizen to get caught in Egypt’s crackdown. Ibrahim Halawa, an Irish teenager, was detained in August 2013 while on holiday in Cairo, after he was caught up in a bloody siege at Cairo’s Al-- Fath mosque. In a recent letter smuggled from prison written on a scrap of paper, the Dublin-born Halawa wrote: “I wake up every morning to the voices of other prisoners screaming from the hitting and I can hear the beatings so loud.”
Critics accuse the West of turning a blind eye towards what they say is Egypt’s crackdown on dissent and freedom of speech in favour of improved economic ties and security co-operation.
Mr Mansour’s arrest may bring to a head Germany’s divisions over how to deal with Egypt, a country that is a valuable political ally and business partner, but also accused of human rights abuses.
While Mr Sisi’s visit to Germany this month was at Mrs Merkel’s invitation, the speaker of Germany’s parliament cancelled a meeting with him, citing rights violations in Egypt.
Egypt yesterday appointed a new ambassador to Israel to fill a post that had been vacant since ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi recalled the previous envoy in 2012.
State news agency MENA said that Hazem Khairat, a former ambassador to Chile, was appointed but did not say when he will take up his post.