Germany to deport leader of banned Islamic centre

Germany is planning to deport the leader of an Islamic centre it banned in July over alleged links to extremist groups, an interior ministry spokeswoman said Thursday.

Investigators swooped on the Hamburg Islamic Centre five weeks ago after concluding it was an “Islamist extremist organisation” with links to Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group.

Mohammad Mofatteh, 57, the former director of the centre, has been ordered to leave Germany within 14 days and faces deportation if he does not comply, the spokeswoman said.

He will not be allowed to re-enter Germany and could face up to three years in prison if he does.

Andy Grote, interior minister for the state of Hamburg, said Mofatteh’s deportation was “the next logical step” against the Hamburg Islamic Centre.

“As a top religious representative of the inhumane regime in Tehran, his time in Germany has come to an end,” he said.

On banning the centre in July, Germany’s interior ministry accused it of being a “direct representative of Iran’s supreme leader” and spreading Tehran’s ideology “in an aggressive and militant manner”.

The ministry also accused the centre of backing the “military and political dimension” of organisations like Hezbollah.

Germany considers Hezbollah a “Shiite terrorist organisation” and in 2020 banned Hezbollah from carrying out activities on its soil.

Iran reacted angrily to the accusations and last week shut down a German language institute in Tehran in what appeared to be a tit-for-tat move.

The move against Mofatteh comes with deportations high on the political agenda in Germany after a deadly knife attack in the western city of Solingen.

Three people were killed and eight injured in the rampage, allegedly carried out by a Syrian asylum seeker and claimed by the Islamic State group.

The attack has reignited a bitter debate about immigration in Germany, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz promising to “do everything we can to ensure that those who cannot and must not stay here in Germany are repatriated and deported”.