site.btaPolice Mount Operation against Probable Islamic State Supporters in Pazardjik, Plovdiv, Smolyan and Haskovo

Police Mount Operation against
Probable Islamic State Supporters in
Pazardjik, Plovdiv, Smolyan and Haskovo


Sofia, November 25 (BTA) - Police assisted by gendarmerie
mounted an operation at the Roma neighbourhood of Pazardjik, as
well as in Plovdiv, Smolyan and Haskovo (in the same part of the
country), acting on a pre-trial proceeding instituted in
connection with the dissemination of an anti-democratic ideology
and propagandizing war, the prosecuting magistracy said on
Tuesday.

According to unconfirmed reports, the pre-trial proceeding was
launched by the Pazardjik District Prosecution Office on an
alert about propagandizing idea of the Islamic State
organization.

According to local media, the operation involves some 300
officers of the police, the gendarmerie, the State Agency for
National Security and investigators. The prosecution service
said that more than 40 homes have been searched so far as part
of the operation. Local media reported that patrol cars blocked
the streets and access to the neighbourhood in Pazardjik, and
classes in the schools in the area were cancelled.

Several persons, including Ahmed Moussa Ahmed, were taken to the
police station for questioning. According to Bulgarian National
Radio (BNR), Moussa and another supporter were arrested at the
Abu Bekir Mosque in Pazardjik. Before being led off, Moussa
spent more than three hours in the mosque together with his
supporters. Witnesses say police raided the mosque after morning
prayers.

The BNR specified that Moussa and an unknown number of persons
are charged
under Article 407 of the Penal Code, which criminalizes
propagandizing war and inciting to war, as well as the
distributing of video materials with anti-democratic ideological
content.

Moussa was among the defendants in what the media dubbed a
"radical Islam trial", which ended in Pazardjik on March 19,
2014 after 18 months of court proceedings. In the case, 13
persons, including one woman, were charged with disseminating an
anti-democratic ideology and participating in an unregistered
branch of the Islamist organization Al-Waqf Al-Islami. The
organization was active in the southern Bulgarian regions of
Pazardjik, Blagoevgrad and Smolyan and preached the Salafi
strain of Islam, considered to be antidemocratic.

The court imposed one enforceable prison sentence, two
conditional sentences and ten administrative penalties. Moussa
was given deprivation of liberty for one year and a 5,000 leva
fine for participating in an unregistered organization,
disseminating an anti-democratic ideology and inciting hatred on
religious grounds. He was supposed to serve another three-year
term as well because the offences were committed while an
earlier conditional sentence was running. However, he appealed
the sentence and remained at large.

***

Unknown persons smashed the windows of an office of the Movement
for Rights and Freedoms in the centre of Pazardjik on the night
of Monday to Tuesday, the Pazardjik Regional Directorate of
Interior said. Police spokesman Miroslav Stoyanov specified that
an alert of the incident was received Tuesday morning. Nothing
has been stolen from the premises, Stoyanov said. A pre-trial
proceeding against an unknown perpetrator has been instituted in
the case. PK/LG

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