 A journalist with the Arab television station Al Jazeera charged with belonging to al Qaeda will be freed from jail on medical grounds but will remain under house arrest pending trial, a court official said on Monday. Spain's High Court ordered Tayseer Alouni's release from a prison near Madrid, but he will not be allowed to leave his house except to visit the doctor, the official said. Alouni interviewed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities and was first arrested in September 2003 in Granada. He was released on bail about one month later because of a serious heart condition, but Spanish police rearrested him last November for fear he might flee the country. He has been charged with providing al Qaeda with money and information and recruiting fighters. Alouni, a Syrian-born father of five and holder of Spanish citizenship, says he is innocent.| "Jus' like all the other shahids!" |
He is on a list of 35 people charged with belonging to al Qaeda in 2003 including bin Laden himself, who was accused of mass murder for the Sept. 11 attacks. The reporter's initial arrest sparked outrage among Arab human rights groups, journalists and colleagues at Qatar-based Al Jazeera, who called it an attack on press freedom. Soon after his re-arrest in November, the prisons service confirmed that Alouni was being held in isolation. |