Alouni rose to prominence over his distinguished coverage during the U.S.-led wars on Afghanistan and Iraq

MADRID, September 6 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Spanish police arrested Friday, September 5, a journalist of the Qatar-based al-Jazeera television at his family's home in the southern Spanish city of Granada on charges of links to al-Qaeda.

Police sources said the correspondent, Tayssir Alouni, had been arrested on the orders of judge Baltasar Garzon as part of his investigation "into Islamic militant operations" and would be sent to Madrid for questioning by the top investigative judge, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The sources said he would be transferred to the capital within hours for questioning and would appear before a judge by Monday, September 8.

Police said Alouni was suspected of having links to members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, including Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, aka Abu Dahdah, who was arrested on suspicion of being the ringleader of an eight-strong cell which Spanish authorities dismantled in November 2001.

The cell is suspected of having helped to prepare the September 11 attacks, though U.S. authorities have not applied for his extradition.

In Qatar an al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Blut condemned the reporter's arrest, saying it was "another inconvenience to which journalists in general and those from al-Jazeera in particular fall victim."

He told AFP that the channel had appointed a lawyer to defend its correspondent.

"There are other journalists who have relations with al-Qaeda suspects and there are other networks who air tapes and statements from al-Qaeda," the channel's editor-in-chief, Ibrahim Hilal, told the Associated Press.

"Why is al-Jazeera's correspondent the one arrested then?"

"Anyone can have acquaintances who are linked to al-Qaeda, and this is not a crime," Hilal said of his correspondent.

"It is only a crime when these relations are used in an illegal way and not when they are used for journalistic purposes."

The Arab Commission for Human Rights told Al-Jazeera the Spanish action was a serious attack on press freedom.

It said the arrest dishonored Spain and the police should apologize immediately to Alouni and his family.

Alouni's wife Fatima told Spanish television station CNN+ her husband had been in Granada for two months and dismissed any idea of his involvement in "Islamic fundamentalism".

"Do you think he would put himself in the wolf's mouth if he had to hide from anyone?" she asked.

Spanish state prosecutor Pedro Rubira and Garzon suspect Alouni of involvement in "the organization of, support for and infrastructure of this cell," according to the warrant for his arrest.

Alouni also stands suspected of "furnishing al-Qaeda with funds in Afghanistan," where he was an al-Jazeera correspondent during the 2001 U.S.-led war which brought the end of Taliban rule.

In late October 2001, just weeks after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the Spanish paper El Pais reported that police had been tracking Alouni, of Syrian origin but who has Spanish citizenship, for around a year for suspected links to "Islamic radicals".

The newspaper reported that Alouni's phone had been tapped by authorities while he was working in Granada for the Arabic service of Spanish national news agency EFE, where he remained until February 2000.

Alouni later worked for Al-Jazeera during the conflict in Afghanistan and was involved in the broadcast of videos of bin Laden, accused of being the mastermind behind the September 11 attacks, threatening the United States with renewed attacks.

In April he was working in Baghdad for al-Jazeera during the U.S.-led invasion of the oil-rich Arab country.