Fundamentalist Group Says It Killed Muslim Cleric in Belgium

BRUSSELS —  An obscure Muslim fundamentalist group, the Soldiers of Justice, claimed responsibility in Beirut on Friday for the slayings of a Muslim religious leader and his assistant earlier this week.

The Lebanese-based group said Muslim leader Abdullah Ahdal, 36, and assistant Salim Behir, 40, were killed because they worked for Israeli intelligence. However, Belgian police continued to focus their investigations on the theory that the two men were shot dead because of Ahdal’s moderate stance on the controversy surrounding author Salman Rushdie and his book, “The Satanic Verses.”

Marina Coppieters T’Wallant, magistrate in charge of the investigation, appealed for information, calling in particular on anyone who had spoken to the victims Wednesday to contact police.

The Brussels newspaper De Morgen on Friday published a copy of an open letter, widely distributed in the large Arab community only days before the killings, criticizing Ahdal for his statements on the Rushdie book and his refusal to authorize publication of another book attacking the British-based author and his works.

The open letter, addressed in French to “brothers and sisters in Islam,” takes the side of another Brussels Muslim leader and religious instructor, the Imam Mohammed Saghir, in his challenge against Ahdal. As director of the World Islamic League Mosque and Cultural Center, Ahdal was Saghir’s supervisor in the center’s program of religious education.

‘He Rides Alone’

“The director (Ahdal) doesn’t represent anyone. He rides alone,” the unsigned letter stated.

Specifically, the letter accused Ahdal of doing nothing to prevent publication of “The Satanic Verses” in Belgium and refusing to urge the banning of the book in newspaper and television interviews on the subject. “At the same time,” the letter continued, “he blocked our Muslim brother Imam Mohammed Saghir from publishing a book he just wrote clarifying the Rushdie affair for Muslims and non-Muslims alike.”

The letter claimed Ahdal told Saghir that if he published the book, he would be forced to leave the religious center.

Police said Saghir and Ahdal met to discuss their disagreements in the same offices of the large mosque where the religious leader was killed only hours later. But a police spokesman said Saghir is not a suspect in the killings.

However, the tone of the letter and the obvious hostility illustrates an emotional division in the Muslim community over the Rushdie matter and Ahdal’s leadership.

Since it receives substantial financial aid from Saudi Arabia, the World Islamic Center has often been the object of jealousies in the greater Muslim community. In fact, Ahdal, a Saudi, came to the mosque and religious center, which represents the Sunni Muslim community in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, seven years ago after a similarly bitter conflict forced the resignation of his predecessor, a Tunisian, Mohammed Aluini.

Whether these disputes were deep enough to result in professional-style assassination is another matter. However, investigators said Friday that they have no evidence linking the Soldiers of Justice group with the slayings.

In a typewritten statement issued in Beirut, the group claimed “responsibility for carrying out God’s verdict on traitors Abdullah Ahdal and Salim Behir.” The statement claimed Ahdal and Behir had used the Brussels Islamic Center as a front for anti-Islamic activities and were working on behalf of Israeli intelligence.

Kidnaping of Belgian

The Soldiers of Justice organization first surfaced in December when it claimed responsibility for the kidnaping of a Belgian doctor, Jan Cools, 32, in southern Lebanon on May 21 last year. Since then it has issued press releases in Beirut taking credit for a December attack on a Jewish social club in Copenhagen and the shooting death of a Saudi Arabian diplomat in Bangkok, Thailand, also in December.