Irish ‘Isis fighter’ should lose his citizenship, says top Muslim cleric
THE Irish passport holder captured allegedly fighting for Isis in Syria should be stripped of his citizenship, an Islamic imam said yesterday.
Shaykh Dr Umar Al-Qadri was reacting to news a man named Alexandr Bekmirzaev, formerly of Seville Place, Dublin, was one of a group of five men captured by Syrian Democratic Forces.
The Irish Daily Mail understands that the 45-year-old is a Chechen native who grew up in Belarus before moving to Dublin. The man met his wife and fathered a son in Ireland, and ran a number of cash businesses in the five years or so before he became a citizen in 2010.
When he was asked about Mr Bekmirzaev’s capture, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said ‘any Irish citizen around the world is entitled to consular assistance and will get that’.
Last night, Dr Al-Qadri – chief imam of Dublin-based Islamic Centre Ireland – told the Mail: ‘The Muslim community in Ireland is fed up with these kind of people. We would have loved it if Mr Varadkar could have been more vocal in his condemnation of this man. He is not someone who needs our help. He travelled abroad to kill innocent people and he should be stripped of his Irish citizenship.
‘He chose to undermine every value this society that he became a citizen of stands for.’
Last night the Department of Foreign Affairs said that there is legislation that can strip someone of their citizenship. A department spokesperson said: ‘In line with this legislation a committee has been established to examine individual cases and make recommendations to the minister.’
Defence analyst Declan Power said last night he was surprised that someone would become radicalised so quickly after being made a citizen. He said: ‘Normally people who come from outside the State to reside here would have those radical tendencies to begin with. But it is hard to pin them down.’
Although Bekmirzaev is reported to have been a member of the Anwar-E-Madina mosque on Talbot Street, where he ran businesses, Islamic sources say he was not a member. One said last night: ‘You would see him around but he was not a regular at the mosque. Far from it. In fact, he wasn’t even that much of a Muslim.’
Of his capture, an SDF spokesperson said: ‘A group of terrorists who had been preparing to attack the civilians who were trying to get out of the war zone in masses was detected .... As a result of the operation, five terrorists originally from the United States, Ireland and Pakistan were captured.’
‘Fed up with these kind of people’
ANYONE who is vaguely familiar with the Islamic State – also known variously as Isil or Isis – will know that it stands for a regime that is barbarous, inhuman and murderous to the point of insanity.
We have seen prisoners of war burned alive; captive westerners having their heads chopped off; people being thrown off buildings for being gay. Anybody who supports this profoundly evil regime must also be taken as supporting those and hundreds of other crimes against humanity committed in the name of this vile and twisted sect.
Therefore it is absolutely right that any naturalised Irish citizen who chooses to fight for this regime – which has as its stated aims the destruction of democratic nations such as ours – should forfeit the right to be considered Irish.
It is also heartening that this call is being endorsed by Dr Umar Al-Qadri, a leading Muslim cleric in Ireland.
Concerns have to be raised, however, as to the process by which Alexandr Ruzmatovich Bekmirzaev, 45, who is originally from Belarus, came to be naturalised here in the first place.
Given that he received his citizenship in 2010 and left for Syria in 2013, is it likely that he was radicalised only in those three years? If not, and he had jihadist leanings before he was granted citizenship, then serious questions remain to be answered as to why and how his application was approved.