Qatar-based television channel Al-Jazeera has criticised Spain's arrest earlier in the day of its star journalist Tayseer Allouni in the southern city of Grenada on suspicion of links to extremist groups. Mr Alluni's detention "is another inconvenience to which journalists in general and those from Al-Jazeera in particular fall victim," the channel's spokesman Jihad Blut told AFP.
| The very fact that the guy's named Jihad makes me discount his statement. If it turns out he's a German Muslim, I doubly discount the statement. |
"The channel has appointed a lawyer for Allouni and is now trying to contact the Spanish authorities as well as non-governmental organisations responsible for defending the freedom of the press," he said. Police sources in Madrid said earlier that Allouni had been arrested on the orders of judge Baltasar Garzon as part of his investigation into Islamic militant operations. Mr Allouni is suspected of having links to members of Al Qaeda, including Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, alias Abu Dahdah, who was arrested on suspicion of being the ringleader of an Islamist fundamentalist cell which Spanish authorities dismantled in November 2001. The cell is suspected of having helped to prepare the September 11 attacks, although the US justice did not apply for extradition. In late October 2001, just weeks after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, Spanish daily El Pais reported police had been tracking Allouni, who is of Syrian origin but who has Spanish citizenship, for around a year on suspected links to Islamic radicals. |