Alaa Fazzaa, who owns and runs the private online news agency Khabarjo.net, recently published a report revealing the details of the flight from the country three months ago of the convicted businessman Khalid Shahin.
According to local media, Fazzaa was detained upon orders from Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit, who was forced last week to fire two of his ministers in connection with Shahin's affair.
When he left the country on Feb. 25, Shahin was serving a three-year jail term after the State Security Court found him guilty of bribery in his bid to acquire a $1.2-billion contract for the expansion of the country's sole petroleum refinery.
The authorities then said that he was allowed to leave to London for medical treatment because his illness could not be cured locally.
Senior doctors of the Royal Medical Services challenged this opinion, saying adequate facilities existed in Jordan for his treatment.
The issue surfaced in Jordan over the past weeks as a key case of corruption that prompted King Abdallah to ask Bakhit to take judicial proceedings against those who were involved in key corruption cases that dominated the Jordanian street over the past months.
In his reply to the monarch, Bakhit pledged to go against corrupt officials as well as all those who report cases of corruptions without adequate evidence.
Fazzaa's detention drew sharp reactions from rights groups in the country, particularly journalists who said they planned to stage a protest in front of the Jordan Press Association.