Ex- Al Jazeera journo facing jail claims being 'duped' by employer

The Al Jazeera journalist who was detained in Egypt on charges of secretly supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, has gone on record to claim that he was duped by his employer.

Mohamed Fahmy, writing in The New York Times, has claimed that the network knowingly antagonised the Egyptian authorities by defying a court-ordered ban on its Arabic-language service, and added, that the decision was prompted by a desire of the Qatari royal family, which owns the network, to meddle in Egypt's internal affairs, reported Fox News.

Fahmy also alleged that the Arabic service "redubbed" the English-language news packages with inflammatory comments, against objections raised by him. He said that the network also hid the fact that it was providing video cameras to the Brotherhood activists in Egypt and paying them for footage, which it then broadcast, without explaining its political provenance, on the banned Arabic channel.

The former Cairo bureau chief for Al Jazeera English said, "I have come to understand that Al Jazeera's noble-sounding claims are nothing but a glossy whitewash."

The journalist, who already spent 412 days in detention in Egypt and is now undergoing trial as a former Al Jazeera employee, has sued the network for 83 million dollars in Canada, where he also holds citizenship.