BERLIN – Authorities in the west German city of Duisburg suspended an officer
who is a member of a growing radical movement of Islamists in the Federal
Republic because he misused his access to confidential domestic intelligence
information in connection with the observation of the Salafi group.
“It
is a very, very serious case,” said a spokesman for the Interior Ministry of
North Rhine-Westphalia, according to a report last week in the Westdeutsche
Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ).
The suspended officer is named Ali K. German
media frequently do not release the last names of suspects. The WAZ reported
that Ali K’s police functions could have been compromised because he was
supposed to monitor Salafists. Ali K. had contacts to radical Islamic preachers
who advocate hate, the newspaper said.
The radical group of German
Salafists is considered as rejecting the democratic structure of the Federal
Republic and propagating violence against non-Muslims, specifically women, gays,
and Jews.
The authorities first discovered the 31-year-old Ali K.’s
pro-Salafist activity last month when he registered for a permit allowing an
information booth to give out Salafist literature in a public place. According
to the WAZ, Essen police president Stephania Fischer-Weinsziehr believes he will
be “dismissed from the civil service.”
Neither Ali K. nor his attorney
have issued statements.
Salafist Muslims in Germany moved forward with a
campaign in Germany, Austria and Switzerland to give away 25 million
Korans.
Ibrahim Abou Nagie, a Gazaborn Palestinian preacher, who lives in
Cologne is the principal organizer of the growing Salafist Koran distribution
campaign. The Interior Ministry in North Rhine- Westphalia termed the actions as
aggressive proselytizing.
It is unclear if Ali K. has contact with
Abou Nagie.
A March report in The Guardian noted that United Kingdom
officials believe Germany has become a hotbed of radical Islamic recruitment
activity.
A German Islamist from Kosovo, Arid Uka, shot two American
soldiers and was linked to Salafist groups. Critics charge lax German laws with
failing to rope in growing Islamic extremism in the Federal Republic. German
Muslims have over the years travelled to the war theaters of Afghanistan and
Pakistan to participate in violent attacks on American serviceman.
Last
week, a German court convicted Ahmad Wali Siddiqui, a German-Afghan from
Hamburg, of membership in al-Qaida. The court sentenced him to six years.
Siddiqui was allegedly planning attacks on Europe’s economic institutions. He
travelled to Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2009 with a group of fellow German
Muslims for secure training from al-Qaida and the Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan. The US government captured him in Kabul in 2010 and learned about the planned terror attacks in
Europe.