Mosque in Bulgaria’s Pazardzhik, focus of anti-terrorism raid, not under jurisdiction of Chief Mufti
The Ebu Bekir mosque in the Bulgarian town of Pazardzhik that was a focus of a security operation against alleged radical Islamic terrorism is not under the jurisdiction of the Chief Mufti’s office and Ahmed Musa Ahmed, one of those arrested in the November 25 raid, is not an imam.
This was the message from the office of the Chief Mufti, spiritual leader of Bulgaria’s Muslims, which also reiterated its appeal to Muslims not to respond to calls from the “Islamic State”.
In September 2014, the office of the Chief Mufti in Bulgaria, where less than eight per cent of the 7.1 million population is Muslim, and then most of them Sunnis, issued a lengthy statement including the message that the taking of innocent human life, violence, terrorism were totally unacceptable, deeply objectionable and did not overlap with the principles of the religion.
The November 25 raids in four cities and towns in Bulgaria by the State Agency for National Security (SANS), police and prosecutors resulted in 24 arrests. By late on November 26, seven people, Ahmed among them, were facing formal criminal charges.
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