Two charged with terrorism offences

Norway frees cleric

BRUSSELS, Dec 1, (Agencies): Belgian authorities charged a woman and a man on Thursday with terrorism offences over an August machete attack on two policewomen that was claimed by the Islamic State group.

The prosecutor’s office said 36-year-old Sabrina Z. and 37-year-old Farid L., who were detained in a series of raids on Wednesday, were charged by a Belgian judge who is investigating the attack in the southern city of Charleroi.

The assailant was shot dead in the incident.

“They were both indicted for participation in the activities of a terrorist organisation and attempted murder in a terrorist context,” the office said in a statement.

Three other people detained in the raids were released while another is still being held for questioning.

Police seized several bladed weapons, some of them similar to the one used in the attack, when they raided eight homes in the Charleroi area south of the capital Brussels.

During the August 6 incident, a machete-wielding man assaulted the two women outside the main police station in Charleroi before being shot dead by a third officer.

He was identified as an Algerian living illegally in Belgium.

The IS-linked Amaq news agency said one of the group’s “soldiers” carried out the attack “in response to calls to target citizens” of countries involved in the US-led coalition bombing jihadists in Syria and Iraq.

Belgian prosecutors have said the man, identified only as K.B., “had a criminal record but was not known for terrorism.”

Belgium has been on high alert since suicide bombers struck Brussels airport and a metro station near the European Union headquarters on March 22, killing 32 people.

Those attacks were claimed by IS, which controls parts of Iraq and Syria and has claimed numerous terror strikes in Europe over the last year, including attacks in Paris which left 130 people dead.

Krekar

Italy has cancelled a request for the extradition from Norway of controversial Iraqi Kurdish fundamentalist preacher Mullah Krekar, the Norwegian prosecution agency said Wednesday, ordering his immediate release.

The prosecution agency did not provide any explanation for Italy’s move, saying simply that the Italian justice ministry had informed its Norwegian counterpart in a letter that the request would be “withdrawn.”

A refugee in Norway since 1991 but not a citizen, 60-year-old Krekar — whose real name is Najumuddin Ahmad Faraj — is suspected by Italian police of leading the Rawti Shax, a network with alleged links to the Islamic State group and which is suspected of planning attacks in the West.

Norwegian officials had perceived the extradition request as a blessing for their country, which has been struggling for more than 10 years to rid itself of a man seen as troublesome.

Considered a threat to national security and featuring on UN and US terror lists, Krekar has been at risk of deportation since 2003.

Deported

While courts have upheld the ruling, Norwegian law bars him from being deported to Iraq, because he risks the death penalty there.

Having spent several years in a Norwegian prison for threats and inciting violent behaviour, he was again imprisoned on November 23 after exhausting all the legal options to prevent his extradition to Italy.

Krekar’s lawyer, Brynjar Meling, hailed the withdrawal of the extradition request as “a victory of the law”.

“This shows that it is not possible to conceal an expulsion behind a request for extradition. This decision is a defeat for those who tried,” he told Norwegian media. Krekar was released from custody on Wednesday. “I had no idea I was getting out. I had received no information,” he told daily VG, saying it was “great” to be free.

France President Francois Hollande says his country is thankful to the Czech Republic for its help in the fight against terrorism.

Hollande said through a translator after meeting Czech President Milos Zeman on Wednesday that sharing information and coordinating police activities were particularly important because the Czech Republic is a “transit zone.”

Hollande didn’t elaborate. But Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka says extremists have traveled to Western countries through Czech territory.

Sobotka also says one of the suspects linked to the terror attacks in Paris last year previously had been in the Czech Republic.

Hollande says he and Zeman agreed to intensify their cooperation on nuclear energy, which both countries rely heavily on. The Czech Republic is planning to build new reactors.

Slovakia passed legislation on Wednesday to effectively block Islam from gaining official status as a religion in the near future in the latest sign of growing anti-Muslim sentiment across the European Union.

The former communist state has fiercely resisted EU efforts to cope with a big influx of mainly Muslim migrants into Europe since 2015, in part by opposing quotas to share out asylum seekers among EU members. Prime Minister Robert Fico’s government has said Islam has no place in Slovakia.

Bill

Parliament adopted a bill sponsored by the Slovak National Party (SNS), junior member in Fico’s coalition, that requires a religion to have at least 50,000 members, up from 20,000, to qualify for state subsidies and to run its own schools.

The change will make it much harder to register Islam, which has just 2,000 adherents in Slovakia according to the last census and no recognised mosques. The Islamic Foundation in Slovakia estimates the number at around 5,000.

The SNS said the new law was meant to prevent speculative registrations of churches, such as the satirical Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which has amassed followers worldwide.

“Islamisation starts with a kebab and it’s already under way in Bratislava, let’s realise what we can face in five to 10 years ... We must do everything we can so that no mosque is built in the future,” SNS chairman Andrej Danko said earlier.