Egyptian activist Abdul Rahman al-Qaradawi was arrested on an Egyptian arrest warrant, a Lebanese official said.
A group of lawyers and activists have called for the immediate release of Abdul Rahman al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian opposition activist wanted by Cairo, who was arrested by Lebanese authorities as he arrived from Syria at the Masnaa border crossing.
Al-Qaradawi, also a poet and the son of the Muslim Brotherhood’s late spiritual leader, was arrested over the weekend on an Egyptian arrest warrant, a Lebanese judicial official said.
The order was “based on a ruling by the Egyptian judiciary” that sentenced al-Qaradawi in absentia to five years in prison on charges of “sedition and inciting terrorism,” the official said.
Al-Qaradawi’s lawyer, Mohammed Sablouh, called on Sunday for Lebanese authorities to allow his client to speak to his family.
“(We want to) prove that this person (al-Qaradawi) can be tortured in his country (Egypt), in an attempt to stop his extradition and return,” he said.
Sablouh added that al-Qaradawi has Turkish citizenship and asked that he be allowed to travel to Turkey.
Al-Qaradawi’s father was the prominent Sunni scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is outlawed in Egypt.
The late scholar was jailed several times in Egypt for his ties to the Muslim Brotherhood before he died in 2022 while in exile.
Lebanese authorities “will ask the Egyptian authorities” to transfer Abdul Rahman al-Qaradawi’s file for review, the judicial official said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The judiciary will make a recommendation if “the conditions are met for him to be extradited” and the matter will be referred to the Lebanese government, which must make the final decision, the official added.
The campaign launched by activists aims to put pressure on the Lebanese authorities and ask them to respect international laws regarding the protection of political dissidents and prevent their extradition to countries that could pose a threat to their lives.
Al-Qaradawi, 53, was a political organizer against the regime of longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled in 2011 in the Arab Spring uprising.
He later became a vocal opponent of current Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who in 2013 overthrew elected president Mohamed Morsi.
Rights groups say Egyptian authorities have detained tens of thousands of people as political prisoners.
