BERLIN, June 22 (UPI) -- German authorities Monday released Ahmed Mansour, a prominent journalist jailed for two nights at the request of the Egyptian government.
Mansour, 52, an on-air host of Al Jazeera's Arabic television news service, was detained at the Berlin's Tegel Airport on Saturday, before his flight to Qatar, and remained in custody until Monday, his lawyers said.
His incarceration at Berlin's Moabit prison is the most recent in a series of incidents involving the Egyptian government and journalists, most notably those working for the Qatar-based Al Jazeera. In 2014, Mansour was convicted in absentia in a Cairo criminal court for alleged involvement in the torture of a lawyer during a 2011 political uprising in Egypt. He was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment; both Mansour and Al Jazeera have rejected the charges, and Fazli Altin, one of Mansour's lawyers, called the case "politically tainted."
Germany was sharply criticized for Mansour's detention while a petition with 25,000 signatures, calling on German Chancellor Angela Merkel, was quickly organized. There was also a protest involving dozens of his supporters at the Berlin federal court building where he was held prior to his transfer to Moabit.
The arrest came days after an official visit to Germany by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, during which Merkel voiced her objection to human rights violations in Egypt.
