BERLIN: A lawyer for a detained Al-Jazeera journalist says a court in Berlin will check the validity of the Egyptian arrest warrant that led Germany to hold his client for two days.

Fazli Altin says the court will meet Monday and there are hopes journalist Ahmed Mansour could be released as early as this afternoon.

Mansour, 52, a well-known journalist with the Qatar-based broadcaster's Arabic service, was detained at Berlin's Tegel airport Saturday as he tried to board a Qatar Airways flight to Doha. Altin said German border police acted based on an Egyptian arrest warrant disseminated by Interpol, but said Interpol itself had not issued its own warrant.

Mansour, who holds Egyptian-British nationality, has been convicted in absentia in Egypt on charges his lawyers and reporters' groups call politically motivated.