Egypt's interior minister Habib al-Adli has criticised the British police for coming to "hasty conclusions" about an Egyptian biochemist who was living in Leeds, northern England, and who returned to Cairo several days before the London attacks.
The pro-government daily, Al Jumhuriya, said the minister had told it that reports of the scientist's links to al-Qaeda were groundless.
Prosecutor general Maher Abdel Wahid has also come out with a pointed reminder that Egypt and the UK have no extradition treaty, so that even if the chemist were charged in Britain, Cairo need not send him back.
Egyptian police arrested Magdi el-Nashar (33) last Thursday after British officials had given his name to the Egyptian authorities a few days earlier. Investigators found explosives in a house in Alexandra Grove, Leeds, to which Dr Nashar was reported to have links.
Muhammad Muhammad, the imam of the Tawhid mosque in Cairo, said yesterday: "Police attended prayers on Thursday. They stood beside him and at the end just linked their arms to his and walked him out to a waiting car. That's the way it's done here."
The arrest has caused shock and consternation in the lower-middle-class neighbourhood of Cairo where his family lives.
Residents say Dr Nashar was known as a quiet, polite scientist who did his family proud by his educational achievements.
Although he attended the mosque regularly, he was not known as a fundamentalist, and he retained close links to a Christian family in the dusty street where he grew up.
Egyptian human rights advocates have taken up the case, calling for access to him by independent lawyers.