Posted on 08/06/2004 11:48:17 AM PDT by knighthawk
AUGSBURG, Germany (Reuters) - Almost 300 German police raided 32 premises in a renewed crackdown on suspected members of a banned Islamist group, authorities said on Friday.
Police in the southern city of Augsburg said officers had searched the homes and prayer areas of suspected members of the Cologne-based group known as the Kalifatstaat (Caliphate State) in several German states.
"We found indications that the group continues to exist," said Klaus Bayerl, a spokesman for Augsburg police.
Police said they had not made any arrests, but that 24 persons, predominantly of Turkish origin, were under investigation on suspicion of having violated the ban. The searches revealed no indications of any planned attacks, police said.
Police said the raids followed mounting evidence in recent months that the organization was continuing its activities.
The government originally outlawed the group as unconstitutional and a threat to democracy in 2001, and an appeal to overturn the ban was rejected in October 2003.
Friday's raid focused on the southern state of Bavaria and on Augsburg in particular, police said. Books, posters, flyers, film material and a computer were seized.
In December, police carried out a nationwide operation on over 1,000 suspected members of the group.
The Kalifatstaat was the first group to be outlawed after the government introduced tighter controls over Islamist organizations when it emerged that several of the September 11 aircraft hijackers had lived in Germany.
The group's leader Metin Kaplan is wanted in Turkey in connection with a 1998 plot to crash an explosives-laden aircraft into the mausoleum of Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern, secular Turkish state.
In May, a court decided Kaplan could be extradited to Turkey to face treason charges, overturning rulings that he faced the threat of torture in his home country. He has appealed against the extradition ruling.
Kaplan has served a four-year term in a German jail for calling for the murder of a rival religious leader.
Ping
Banned? Banned? Did I hear Banned?
Is the Polizei developing some balls once again? I was stationed on there in the eighties as an MP and they used to kick ass until the libs took over. Bush/Cheney 2004
Ahhhh, the left coast of the US.
LOL!
Hehhehe! Thanks, I needed that to get the weekend started right!
The raids took place in Bayern, which is indeed not as socialist a state as the rest of Germany.
Katya, thank you for the info.
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