GERMANY-AL JAZEERA/EGYPT MANSOUR Al Jazeera journalist Mansour thanks German authorities after his release

Record ID: 152048

  • Title: GERMANY-AL JAZEERA/EGYPT MANSOUR Al Jazeera journalist Mansour thanks German authorities after his release
  • Date: 23rd June 2015
  • Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (JUNE 23, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF AL JAZEERA JOURNALIST AHMED MANSOUR ARRIVING FOR NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) AL JAZEERA JOURNALIST, AHMED MANSOUR, SAYING (ACCORDING TO OFFICIAL GERMAN TRANSLATION): "I would like to thank all German politicians who supported me." REPORTERS (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) AL JAZEERA JOURNALIST, AHMED MANSOUR, SAYING (ACCOR
  • Embargoed: 8th July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA3LIXXZGN61T2720MMTYST603
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: A prominent Al Jazeera journalist who was released from a German prison on Tuesday (June 23) thanked German authorities for "resisting pressure" directed against him.
    Ahmed Mansour, one of Jazeera's best-known journalists, was released on Monday (June 22) after Egypt was unable to dispel concerns about the extradition process, the Berlin public prosecutor's office said in a statement.
    According to a foreign ministry spokesman, Germany does not extradite anyone to any country where he or she might be sentenced to death.
    "I would especially like to thank the attorney general," Mansour told reporters in Berlin through an interpreter.
    "I would like to thank him for resisting all the pressure which was directed against me."
    Andreas Wattenberg, one of Mansour's German lawyers, said that he and his colleagues were "interested" in finding out why Germany respected Egypt's arrest warrant some three months after it was turned down by Interpol.
    "If Interpol -- and this is currently our information -- turned down an arrest warrant because it was viewed as political persecution, something like a red flag should have come up," Wattenberg said at a joint news conference with Mansour.
    A Cairo court sentenced Mansour - a joint British-Egyptian national - to 15 years in prison in absentia last year on a charge of torturing a lawyer in 2011 in Tahrir Square, the focus of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.
    Mansour and Al Jazeera deny the charge.
    Egypt accuses Al Jazeera of being a mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Qatar-backed Islamist movement that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi removed from power in 2013 when he was army chief and denounces as a terrorist group.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register