Cairo seeks detained journalist’s transfer
Al Jazeera TV anchor and reporter Mansour held in Berlin on Egyptian arrest warrant
Egyptian authorities will request Germany to hand over leading Al Jazeera journalist Ahmad Mansour, who is detained in Berlin on criminal charges, state media said yesterday.
Egypt’s chief prosecutor, Hesham Barakat, directed aides to request German authorities and the International Police (Interpol) to hand over Mansour, semi-official newspaper Al Ahram reported.
“He is put on the watchout lists in Egypt in view of the 15-year jail ruling against him,” Barakat told Al Ahram.
The 52-year-old TV anchor and reporter is wanted in Egypt after a court sentenced him in absentia to 15 years in prison on charges of complicity in the torture of a lawyer in the iconic Tahrir Square during the 2011 revolt against former president Hosny Mubarak.
Mansour and others, including a former Islamist minister, were convicted of kidnapping and physically and sexually assaulting the lawyer in an office of a tourism company in Tahrir Square because they suspected him of being a collaborator with security agencies during the uprising that forced Mubarak out of power.
Mansour, who holds dual Egyptian-British citizenship, has dismissed the charges as fabricated.
Local media said that Egypt would soon send a file of charges against Mansour to back up its request for his extradition.
“In case Germany approves the request for his handover, a security team from Egypt will travel to escort him back to Egypt,” an unnamed security official told private newspaper Al Masry Al Youm.
Criminal charges
Egyptian legal officials were quoted as saying that the charges against Mansour are criminal, not political.
A German judge is expected to decide on Mansour’s case today.
Mansour, who was born in the Egyptian delta province of Dakahlia in 1962, is believed to be a member of the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Thousands of the Islamist group’s members and followers have been rounded up and jailed on charges of inciting or participating in violence since the army deposed Islamist president Mohammad Mursi In 2013.