Lebanese authorities have detained Abdul Rahman al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian opposition activist and the son of the late Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, according to a Lebanese judicial official who spoke to AFP on Sunday.
Qaradawi, who is also a poet, was arrested on Saturday at the Masnaa border crossing as he arrived from Syria. His detention is based on an Egyptian arrest warrant issued following a judiciary ruling that sentenced him in absentia to five years in prison on charges of “opposing the state and inciting terrorism,” the official stated.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a prominent Sunni scholar and key figure of the Muslim Brotherhood—which Egypt has outlawed—was imprisoned several times in Egypt before spending decades in exile in Qatar. He passed away in 2022.
The Lebanese judiciary will request Abdul Rahman al-Qaradawi’s case file from Egyptian authorities to determine whether “the conditions are met for his extradition,” the official explained.
The final decision on the matter rests with the Lebanese government.
Qaradawi has long been a political activist, organizing against former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising. He later became a vocal critic of current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who led the overthrow of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi in 2013.
A family friend disclosed that Qaradawi holds Turkish citizenship and had been returning from Syria, where rebels toppled Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad on December 8. Qaradawi shared a video online from Damascus' Umayyad Mosque celebrating Assad's downfall and expressing hope for similar outcomes in other Arab Spring nations, including Egypt.
In the video, he also warned Syrians of “malicious regimes” in countries like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.
The video has been widely shared and labeled “insulting” by Egyptian media. Some commentators close to Sisi’s administration have called for Qaradawi to be extradited to Egypt, according to AFP.
The Muslim Brotherhood was outlawed and designated a terrorist organization in Egypt in December 2013, several months after the ouster of Morsi, following mass protests against his rule.
Since Morsi’s ouster, Egyptian authorities have launched a crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters. As part of the crackdown, thousands of Brotherhood supporters have been jailed and the group was blacklisted as a terrorist organization.
In 2018, Egypt passed a law to oversee the freezing of assets of “terrorists” and “terrorist groups”.
Following the approval of that law, the assets of more than 1,000 charities tied to the Muslim Brotherhood were frozen.