A journalist working for the Arab broadcaster al-Jazeera was turned back at Geneva airport on Sunday evening by the Swiss authorities. He spent the night in the airport's transit area before heading back to Brussels.

Palestinian-born Ahmad Kamal presented himself to the Swiss border police with Belgian travel documents, but without the necessary visa, according to a Geneva police spokesman.

Kamal called his employers to say the Swiss had detained him. The police told swissinfo on Monday he was taken to a dormitory in the transit zone to spend the night before being sent back to Belgium. The journalist was searched, according to routine procedure.

Al-Jazeera has made a name for itself in the Western world since the beginning of the American bombings in Afghanistan. Called the "Gulf's CNN", it is the only broadcaster allowed to work in Afghanistan by Kabul's Taliban regime.

The Qatar-based television station recently broadcast a video exclusive of Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

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