Pazardzhik Imam Charged With Membership of War-Propagating Group  

DANS national security agency searched a mosque in Roma neighbourhood of Pazardzhik, Bulgaria, in an operation reportedly targeting suspected supporters of Islamic State militants, 25 November 2014. Photo BGNES

Bulgarian prosecutors have formally charged imam Ahmed Musa Ahmed with membership of a group propagating war and anti-democratic ideology.

Criminal charges will be also brought against another five people detained in a large-scale operation conducted by the Chief Prosecutor's Office and the State Agency for National Security, or DANS, in several Bulgarian cities on Tuesday BNR radio station reported on Wednesday. 

The operation is part of an investigation of suspected “propagation of a fascist or another anti-democratic ideology or a forceful change of the public and state order  established by the Constitution” and “propagation of war”. Both violationsare punishable by a jail terms or a fine under Bulgaria's Penal Code.

Charges against Imam Ahmed Musa Ahmed, seen as the spiritual leader of Muslims in the Roma neighbourhood of Pazardhik, were pressed by the regional prosecutors’ office in the city in southern Bulgaria on Wednesday, BNR said.

Imam Ahmed Musa Ahmed is appealing an earlier four-year jail sentence he had been issued for propagating radical Islam ideology.

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