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Italian Govt Deports Imam to Morocco

Italian Govt Deports Imam to Morocco

Author: Agence France Presse
Publication: Arab News
Date: September 7, 2005

A Muslim preacher has arrived in his home country Morocco after being arrested overnight in Turin under Italy's newly adopted counterterrorism law, accused of extremism, the Interior Ministry announced yesterday.

The ANSA news agency had said earlier that Bouriqi Bouchta, the self-styled "imam of Turin," was arrested at his home in the racially mixed Porta Palazzo area of the city.

Italy adopted a counterterrorism law at the end of July on the initiative of Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu.

The legislation makes it easier to expel foreigners deemed a risk to national security or found supporting or helping terrorist groups.

The law also allows terrorism suspects to be held 24 hours without charge and questioned without a lawyer present.

Bouchta, 40, was the first person to be ordered out of the country under the new law, but four other Muslim preachers have been deported from Italy since 2003 for "serious public security concerns."

Bouchta has long been controversial, demanding for example that women should be allowed to wear a veil for official identity photographs.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States he was accused of expressing solidarity with Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden during prayers in a mosque, but he denied this.

Bouchta was prominent among demonstrators in Rome on April 29 calling for the release of Italian hostages in Iraq.

In November 2003 he criticized the expulsion of another Muslim leader from the Turin region, Abdoul Mamour, saying, "We preach love, not hate."

The president of the Islamic Institute of Turin, Abdel Hamid Shaari, said he was surprised by the expulsion, telling ANSA that Bouchta's views had evolved since he arrived in Italy in the early 1990s "when he did not know the reality" of the country.

But the xenophobic Northern League, a government coalition partner, has been foremost in demanding the imam's expulsion. It staged a demonstration against him in April 2003, saying he was close to extremists and had praised the Sept. 11 attacks.
 


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