It’s astounding that asylum was granted to him in the first place. An update on this story. “Italy: Minister revokes imam’s political asylum,” from AKI, May 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):
Varese, 28 May (AKI) – Italy’s interior minister Roberto Maroni revoked the political asylum granted to a radical Islamist preacher after he was jailed on terrorism charges. Egyptian-born imam Abu Imad will be deported as soon has served a 44-month sentence which he began last month, Maroni said.
“When this individual has finished serving his sentence, he will be expelled from Italian soil,” Maroni stated….
Imad’s own lawyer, Carmelo Scambia, said on Thursday he was “amazed” at the granting of asylum to his client, which Imad had requested in 1995.
Imad was until March last year an imam at the northern Italian city of Milan’s central mosque, which has been linked to Islamist terrorism several times.
Imad and 10 other defendants had allegedly set up a Salafite cell that was active in Milan and elsewhere in the northern Lombardy region. Imad’s co-defendants were also jailed.
The cell’s mission is believed to have been recruiting suicide bombers, trafficking illegal immigrants and to have been responsible for indoctrination of recruits in radical jihadist ideology.