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Kurdish Islamic Leader Arrested in Norway on Murder Charges

 
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stefania



Joined: 17 Jul 2003
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 03, 2004 7:48 pm    Post subject: Kurdish Islamic Leader Arrested in Norway on Murder Charges Reply with quote

Kurdish Islamic Leader Arrested in Norway on Murder Charges
New York Times - By Craig S. Smith
Jan 3, 2004


The Norwegian police arrested Mullah Krekar, the spiritual leader of the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Islam, on Friday on charges of attempted murder in connection with two suicide bombings in northern Iraq two years ago.

Norwegian law allows foreigners in Norway to be charged with certain crimes committed outside the country. But Mr. Krekar's lawyer said the timing of the arrest suggested that it was related to the recent terror alert in Hamburg, Germany. Officials there sealed off a military hospital on Tuesday after receiving information from American intelligence agencies, and the interior minister said Ansar al-Islam was suspected of planning an attack.

"They may be thinking that they can connect him to the threat against the hospital in Germany," the lawyer, Brynjar Meling, said by telephone from Oslo. By arresting Mr. Krekar, the Norwegian police gain access to all of his papers and computer files.

Mr. Krekar, a Kurd, was born Najm al-Din Faraj Ahmad in northern Iraq in 1956 and became active in the Iraqi Kurdish Islamic movement after Saddam Hussein attacked the ethnic group in the northern Iraqi city of Halabja in 1988.

He was granted refugee status in Norway after the 1991 Persian Gulf war, but he later returned to northern Iraq, where he became a leader of the radical Islamic movement.

In December 2001, Mr. Krekar formed Ansar al-Islam from among the most militant members of the Kurdish Islamic movement after a bitter power struggle split it.

Mr. Meling said the warrant for Mr. Krekar's arrest cited his involvement in training suicide bombers for two attacks in early 2002, one in Halabja.

Mr. Krekar was arrested in Iran in May 2002 and deported to Amsterdam, where he was held for months and twice questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation before being sent to Norway in January 2003.

The United States has charged that Mr. Krekar's group was a key link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, part of the justification that Washington used in invading Iraq. In March, Mr. Krekar was arrested in Oslo and briefly held as the American-led war began.

Norway cleared Mr. Krekar of terrorism charges in July last year, but the United States has remained interested in his case. Many people in Norway believe that Mr. Krekar was one of the reasons Attorney General John Ashcroft visited Oslo late last year.

Since then, the Pentagon has blamed Ansar al-Islam for much of the violence directed at allied forces and international institutions in Iraq, including suicide bomb attacks against the United Nations and the Red Cross.

Last month, Italian investigators questioned Mr. Krekar about his knowledge of a reputed Ansar al-Islam cell in Milan, which Italian authorities believe was recruiting young Muslim men to fight allied forces in Iraq.

But in an interview late last year, Mr. Krekar denied having any current contacts with the Islamic group he founded.
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