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



//

Source: Sofia