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February 22, 2008

Belgium: Moroccan Islamist's Alleged Murders To Be Investigated

On Monday February 18 in Morocco, 23 individuals were arrested. By Tuesday, 32 people were in custody. Police claimed that a major Islamist terror network had been broken, claiming: "a major terrorist network with Jihadist (holy war) roots, which was preparing to carry out acts of violence on the national territory."

The leader of the group was a Moroccan man called Abdelkader Belliraj who lived mainly in Belgium. Two of the 32 detained people also had been formerly residing in Belgium.

One of the arrested men was Mustapha Moatassim, the secretary general of a small Islamist party which had contested 2007 elections but not won a seat. The party was called Al Badil Al Hadari (Civilizational Alternative) Party. Later it was announced that Moroccan prime minister Abbas El Fassi had officially banned the party.

The Moroccan Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa in which he revealed that weaponry had been seized from some of the suspects' homes - including nine Kalashnikovs, two Uzi machine guns replete with six magazines and a silencer, seven Skorpio sub-machine pistols with ten chargers and 5 silencers, 16 automatic pistols and other munitions and detonators.

Benmoussa said the "Belliraj" network had been founded in 1992, and had established links with GICM (Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain), the group which carried out the Madrid train bombings of March 11, 2004, killing 191 people. The Belliraj group had also developed links with GSPC (Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat), a group now allied with Al Qaeda that calls itself "Al Qaeda in the Maghreb".

The group had planned to carry out explosive-based attacks in Morocco, as well as targeted assassinations of military, civilian, political and Jewish civilian targets.

The Interior Minister claimed the group had funded itself with proceeds of crime, notably a heist at the HQ of BRINKS in Luxembourg in 2001, which raised almost $4 million. The money was laundered in various ways in Morocco. Additionally, gold items stolen in Belgium were melted down as ingots by one of the group based in Morocco.

Chakib Benmoussa also claimed that between 1986 and 1989 Abdelkader Belliraj, the group's leader, had carried out six murders in Belgium.

Today, Flanders News via Expatica reports that in Belgium these claims of murder are now being examined by federal public prosecutors, Brussels public prosecutor's office and the federal police.

Several of Belgium's daily newspapers have suggested that among the six alleged victims of Abdelkader Belliraj was the assassinated rector of Brussels' Grand Mosque, and also the president of the co-ordination committee of Jewish organisations in Belgium.

A spokesman from the Belgium Justice Ministry confirmed that the case was being examined and claimed to be pleased that "dangerous terrorists" were in detention.

Euronews states that Abdelkader Belliraj is thought to have murdered the Grand Mosque rector Abdullah al-Ahdal and his deputy because they had opposed the death fatwa which had been made against Salman Rushdie. The fatwa was issued by Ayatollah Khomeini on February 14, 1989, suggesting that the murder of these two individuals were among the last of those supposedly carried out by Belliraj.

The murder of Joseph Wibran, president of the co-ordination committee of Jewish organisations in Belgium (CCOJB), also took place in 1989. 48-year old Joseph Wibran was killed on October 3, 1989 in the parking area outside Erasme Hospital in Brussels where he worked as head of the immunology department.

Joseph Wibran's murder has never been solved, and at the time it was thought that he had been killed by Palestinian terror group Abu Nidal.

The shooting to death of Abdullah al-Ahdal and his deputy in March 1989, was thought at the time to be carried out by a Lebanese group called "Soldiers for Truth", stated analyst group Stratfor. Abdullah al-Ahdal had openly condemned Khomeini for making the fatwa, and it was thought that this criticism had led to his murder, as well as that of his deputy, Tunisian-born Salim el-Beher, who was 40 years old.

The group Soldiers for Truth had themselves made the claim that they were responsible for the deaths in a statement to a Beirut news agency, stated Reuters at the time.

Saudi-born Abdullah al-Ahdal, aged 36, had been rector of the Grand Mosque in Brussels for six years before he was shot. The mosque was connected with the World Islamic League. His assistant Salim el-Beher had been in Brussels for 10 years and worked as librarian at the mosque.

Their murders took place on March 30, 1989 in the mosque office. They were both shot in the head and neck at close range.

Shortly before, and speaking through his translator, Abdullah al-Ahdal had appeared on state-run French language channel RTBF where he condemned Rushdie's book as "tendentious" and "gratuitously blasphemous of all religions including that of Abraham."

He said: "You must make a distinction between Islamic society and this country. Khomeini is responsible for his own country, but we are in a democratic country where everybody has the right to express his own thoughts and express themselves as they want."

Mr Ahdal had also condemned the manner of the fatwa as being un-Islamic. He said: "You can't condemn a man to death like that."

The Brussels Grand Mosque in Cinquantenaire Park (pictured) was opened by Saudi monarch King Khaled Ibn Abdul Aziz al-Saud in 1978.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at February 22, 2008 8:01 AM

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