(MENAFN- Gulf Times)
Supporters of ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi stage a demonstration demanding the release of detained Al-Jazeera journalist Ahmed Mansour in front of the local court of Berlin's Tiergarten district where Mansour is being held in custody.
AFP/Berlin
An Al-Jazeera journalist detained in Germany at Egypt's request has rejected charges against him as "false" and urged Berlin against colluding with Cairo in a video aired by the broadcaster on Sunday.
"This case is false" Ahmed Mansour said in the video message he recorded in police detention in the German capital.
"The coup regime in Egypt is too weak to drag a state like Germany and the EU into its dirty game against Egyptians" said Mansour referring to the Egyptian military's ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in July 2013.
The Doha-based pan-Arab satellite channel said a judge was scheduled to question Mansour on Sunday hours after he was interrogated by police.
German federal police said on Saturday that a 52-year-old journalist travelling to Doha had been arrested at Berlin's Tegel airport.
A police spokesman said the arrest took place at around 3:20 pm (local time) adding that while Mansour was born in Egypt he also has British nationality.
In a separate video also released by Al-Jazeera Mansour accused the German authorities of dealing with his case "in a way that raises suspicions over its role through complicity with the regime in Egypt".
Mansour also said he had been told by police that his arrest was "based on a German order and not due to Interpol order".
German police said the Egyptian-issued arrest warrant accused Mansour of committing "several crimes" without giving further details.
Al-Jazeera said an Egyptian court had sentenced Mansour in absentia in 2014 to 15 years in prison for "torturing a lawyer in 2011 on Tahrir Square" in Cairo epicentre of an anti-regime uprising that brought down former president Hosni Mubarak.
"Mansour has rejected these absurd accusations" the television network said.
Mansour who hosts a popular news interview programme recently interviewed Abu Mohamed al-Jolani the chief of Al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate Al-Nusra Front.
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