CAIRO, April 27 (Reuters) - Egyptian police released on bail Al Jazeera television's Cairo bureau chief after he was accused of spreading false information while reporting on the recent Sinai bombings, the Al Jazeera office in Cairo said on Thursday.
An Egyptian Interior Ministry spokesman said earlier Hussein Abdel Ghani had been taken in for questioning after reporting an explosion in the eastern province of Sharkia on Wednesday, a report the ministry said was false and spread confusion.
Al Jazeera said during its morning bulletin that police had detained the journalist at his hotel in the resort of Dahab, where bomb attacks killed 18 people this week.
"He said there were incidents in Sharkia and nothing happened. He's spreading confusion," the ministry spokesman said.
Al Jazeera has been banned from several Arab countries due to its hard-hitting -- and sometimes controversial -- coverage of events in a region accustomed to state-controlled media.
At least two of its correspondents are under arrest -- the most prominent is Tayseer Alouni, who was convicted by a Spanish court of allegedly conspiring with al Qaeda militants.
