The Italian justice
ministry has not in fact renounced its extradition request for
Mullah Krekar, who was being detained in Norway and whom Italy
said was responsible for jihadist recruitment and planning
terrorist attacks in Europe, but a Trento judge has revoked his
arrest warrant, removing the grounds for extradition, judicial
sources said Wednesday.
Norway said the mullah would be released later Wednesday.
A week ago the Supreme Court in Oslo rejected the appeal of
the radical Muslim cleric against his extradition to Italy.
Italian investigators say 60-year-old Najmaddin Faraj Ahmad,
Krekar's real name, is the ringleader of Rawti Shax, an
extremist network that wants to overthrow the elected government
of Kurdistan and replace it with a fundamentalist Islamist
"caliphate".
Rawti Shax has branches all over Europe, where it
proselytizes, recruits foreign fighters, and provides logistical
support for aspiring terrorists.
Italy's Special Operations Department (ROS) last year
arrested alleged Rawti Shax member Abdul Rahman Nauroz, who they
say recruited terrorists online and through "lessons" he held in
his flat in the northern city of Merano. Investigators called
Nauroz's flat "a secret meeting location and a crossroads for
aspiring jihadis".
A preliminary investigations judge in Italy a year ago upheld
a pretrial detention order for the mullah.
The cleric, who obtained refugee status in Norway in 1991, is
also known as the founder of Ansar al-Islam, the major Salafist
jihadi group that merged with Islamic State (ISIS) two years
ago.
He was repeatedly arrested and released after the September
11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S., and investigations have
uncovered his high-level contacts with the al-Qaeda terrorist
group. Police also seized a diary in which he had the phone
number of slain terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of
al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).
There are also unconfirmed reports that Norway foiled an
attempt by the CIA to bring about the mullah's extraordinary
rendition, or government-sponsored abduction and extrajudicial
transfer.
Krekar's lawyer Brynar Meling had said he would appeal to the
Norwegian justice department to halt the extradition.
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