MADRID: When does building journalistic contacts with Islamist radicals become a crime of aiding and abetting terrorism? That is what al-Jazeera war correspondent Tayssir Alouni, the most successful television journalist of the Afghan war and the only one with a live link from Taliban Kabul, may be asking himself as he stares though the bars of Spain’s Soto del Real high security prison today.

For the man who brought the world exclusive video tapes of Osama bin Laden after September 11 and who interviewed the Al Qaeda leader in the run up to the Afghan war has now been accused of being part and parcel of that group. His arrest last week either raises serious questions about how far western democracies will allow journalists to go in pursuit of a major scoop or casts equally serious doubt on the professional integrity of Alouni, a Spanish-Syrian who is a hero to Arab satellite television viewers and his employers.

Alouni admits having carried money between Spain and Afghanistan. That, he reportedly told Judge Baltasar Garzon, the star magistrate at Madrid’s national court, was just a normal, friendly thing for a Syrian to do for Arab acquaintances. It must also have been a good way for a journalist to build trust. The fact that some of those people have since been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the September 11 plot, his supporters argue, is inconsequential. It was always Alouni’s job to get as close to Al Qaeda as possible.

The sum of money involved, around $4,000, was not funding for international terror, his newsroom colleagues at Qatar-based al- Jazeera insist. “Tayssir was very, very clear about that,” said Jihad Ballout, the channel’s spokesman.

But Judge Garzon claims that the journalist was much more deeply involved with Al Qaeda. “As a member of the terrorist organization, and taking advantage of his job as a journalist in Kabul, he provided crucial financial support to an Al Qaeda official, Abu Khaleb,” the judge insists in a 23-page court order.

Alouni, who used to work for the Arab service of Spanish news agency EFE, had become a “member” of a Spanish-based Al Qaeda cell several years before he joined al-Jazeera and was sent to run their Kabul bureau in 2000, according to Judge Garzon. He was even involved in recruiting young Muslims in the Spanish city of Granada, according to the judge.

What, in effect, Judge Garzon claims is that al-Jazeera, far from penetrating Al Qaeda, was effectively infiltrated by it. That is a very serious charge against the Arab world’s most highly-rated news channel, and one it vigorously denies. “We are adamant that he did nothing wrong except pursue his profession as best as he could. If that is a crime, then God help us all,” Ballout told the Guardian. “If Tayssir falls then I believe no journalist is safe. A journalist is supposed to get all sides of the story. If we investigate the other side will there now be a sword over our heads?”

Aidan White, general secretary of the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists, described the arrest as ”the continuation of a concerted campaign against Arab media in general, and al-Jazeera in particular. We think this arrest has more to do with political interests than criminal interests.”—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.