Full article at: BBC News

A chief candidate in the Palestinian election has been barred from East Jerusalem after his arrest by Israeli police on the last day of the campaign.

Mustafa Barghouti was detained for a number of hours before being released and sent to the West Bank.

He had been campaigning in East Jerusalem, an area annexed by Israel which Palestinians hope to make the capital of a future state.

Sunday's elections were called when Yasser Arafat died in November.

Mr Barghouti's opponent Mahmoud Abbas, the man tipped to win the election, said on Friday that he would ask current Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei to form a new government if he wins Sunday's vote.

Earlier in the day, Mr Abbas, cancelled a campaign engagement in Jerusalem saying Israeli security arrangements would have embarrassed him.

Officials in Mr Abbas' campaign said Israeli officials had wanted to provide him with a large security detail over concerns he would be attacked by Jewish extremists.

…Mr Barghouti, a leading democracy campaigner, was stopped by police as he tried to enter the al-Aqsa mosque for Friday prayers.

Eyewitnesses say he was bundled into a car by three plain-clothed Israeli policemen and driven away.

An Israeli police spokesman said Mr Barghouti was held for violating an agreement not to enter the mosque compound.

However, Mr Barghouti's lawyer, Raja Shehada, said he knew of no such agreement, and that his client's detention was pure harassment of a candidate on the final day of campaigning.

Mr Barghouti was detained last week and prevented from campaigning in East Jerusalem when he was involved in a scuffle with Israeli soldiers at a West Bank checkpoint.

Israel has annexed East Jerusalem and sees it as its exclusive domain.

Under international law, the area is considered to be occupied territory.

The area is often called Arab East Jerusalem because the majority of its inhabitants are Palestinian, and Palestinians hope to make it their future capital.