Denmark is where three men of Arab descent grew up. Now they are jailed in Lebanon. Lebanese journalist Fatima Rida set out to dig into the lives of three alleged members of the militant group Fatah al-Islam to uncover the role of the West in nurturing Islamist militants. This is the second and final part in her investigative report about Fatah al-Islam, in which she visits the capital of Denmark in search of answers

(Begin here: In 2007 the Fatah al-Islam group fought a fierce battle against the Lebanese Army in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli in the north of Lebanon. Lasting 106 days, the fighting killed more than 400 people, forced the inhabitants to flee and lead to violent clashes in the nearby city of Tripoli.

Lebanese intelligence claims that Fatah al-Islam is comprised by a mix of nationalities, has ties to Syrian intelligence service and to Al Qaida - the latter is denied by the group, though it confirms endorsing the ideas of Al Qaida.

In an attempt to investigate possible ties between the men jailed in the Nahr al-Bared battle to Fatah al-Islam and the allged links to countries in the West, Fatima Rida who is a journalist  with the newspaper Al Hayat, met with three members in the Roumieh Prison in Lebanon: Walid Al Boustani, Ali ibrahim and  Mahmoud Assaad. She heard their sown accounts and went to Denmark to dig into their past to uncover their incentives for joining a militant group like Fatah al-Islam.

Through the IMS twinning program within the Regional Media Cooperation Programme for the Arab World and Iran, Fatima teamed up with Danish journalist Mads Ellesøe to carry out research and interviews in Denmark.)

This is the second and final part of her investigative report which was first published by Al Watan in November 2008. IMS is not responsible for the content.

By: Fatima Rida, Copenhagen

The number of Muslims in Denmark has reached about 200 thousand, out of a population of nearly five and a half million people. The history of Muslims coming to Denmark goes back to the 1960s, when large groups of people emigrated from Pakistan, the Arab Maghreb and Turkey, and moved to the Scandinavian country. Others came to Denmark in the 1980s, when the path of immigration was opened for Arab countries. Observers attribute this to a number of causes, some of them demographic, as natives of Denmark are few in number, and some falling within the framework of allowing Palestinians to immigrate in order to reduce pressures on Israel. These observers stress that immigrating to Denmark in the 1980s was very easy for Palestinians. The 1990s were characterized by the arrival of large groups of immigrants from Afghanistan, and later from Iraq.

Once one begins to speak of the nature of the relationship between Muslims and the state in Denmark, one get a feeling that there is a huge gap separating the two sides, despite long years having passed since these people have been present on Danish soil. Most of the members of Muslim communities there live at the expense of the state, despite some of them having resided in Denmark for over thirty years. Nevertheless, these people have not integrated into the job market. Very few of them, mostly from the “younger generation”, seek to get an education and a job in order to seriously integrate into life there, without that meaning “giving up customs and traditions, and above all the Muslim religion”. While educated people and college graduates are considered few among Arabs and Muslims, a large segment of them choose liberal professions, and work as drivers or as maintenance workers.

Some Muslims, or “Islamists”, find great freedom in their Scandinavian home, which enables them to express their opinion and practice their religious beliefs without the least bit of inconvenience. Nevertheless, this does not prevent them from talking about the feeling of “inferiority” and “racism” in Danish society.

Although the gathering of Muslims in Denmark went through phases, their relationship with the government has been similar throughout the years. Muslims in Copenhagen all agree that until the end of the 1990s, there were no significant problems in the relationship with the state, although “Danish nationals did not have a favorable opinion of people that had black hair or a dark complexion”.

The discrepant phase began with a new right-wing government assuming power in 2001. This government began decreeing new “strict” laws for refugees, which led to an increasing feeling of “difference” among this community, without the occurrence of any notable incidents. Then came the events of September 11, 2001, which led to redrawing the map with lines characterized by “strictness” in dealing with Muslims. With this phase began the process of careful surveillance of certain groups and mosques. However, this in no way resulted in limiting the movements of Muslims. Some consider that the Danish government “behaved shrewdly, as it kept freedom of movement for everyone, making it easier for it to arrest them or keep track of them if it were to suspect anything”.

This phase was followed by the cartoon crisis, and the attempt by two young men of Tunisian origin to assassinate the cartoonist. This placed the Danish government before a reality, which until recently was considered unlikely, as it used to consider that “it had nothing to fear, and that if these people were to take action, they would do it in their countries of origin”.

Alongside stricter laws, in accordance with the European Union and international laws to fight terrorism on one hand, and attempts to strengthen the Danish interior on the other, the Danish government issued a series of laws that raised questions about the government’s commitment to civil liberties. Among the laws that were the most controversial is that, which allowed Danish intelligence services to “deport a refugee”, even if that refugee carries the Danish citizenship, without having to justify such a decision. Additionally, an amendment affected marriage and family laws, as the government issued a decree by virtue of which refugees cannot get married outside the country and bring their family to Denmark. As a result, many refugees were forced to move to Sweden in order to consummate their marriage. Some have considered this an indirect policy to limit the number of refugees residing on Danish soil.

Laws regarding refugees and the organization of their relationship with the state are numerous and have many ramifications. They have become even more complicated in this new phase, in light of the sentiment of Muslims that they are being “targeted” and that a conspiracy is being woven against them, while the government certifies that these laws ensure the safety and freedom of everyone equally.

The paranoia of a conspiracy against Arabs and Muslims has turned into accusations against the government. Some accuse it of making life difficult for them by forbidding cars to go through Nørrebrogade Street (which is known to be an “Arab” street), while Muslims who can be described as “open-minded” assert that the government’s decision is based on its concern for reducing traffic jams and pollution, and that this is why it has decided to turn it into a pedestrian street.

“Radical”, “open-minded”, “fundamentalist” and “salafist” are relative terms in Copenhagen, and those whom the government might describe as radical and accuse of extremism may be viewed by others, from among those who consider themselves to be defenders of Islam, as “lax in their religion”. The mosque or the place of prayer frequented by Muslims is considered an indication of their inclinations and ideas, and therefore allows one to fit them into a category.

Checking up on the Danish neighbourhoods of the Roumieh Prison convicts

Addresses of homes left behind by those incarcerated in Roumieh Prison in the Scandinavian capital Copenhagen, names of acquaintances, telephone numbers, and a password from Walid Al-Bustani to someone in Denmark, “which will facilitate the access to information about his life there”: such was the outcome of interviews with each of Bustani, Ali Ibrahim and Mahmoud Assaad.

Located in a wide and calm street, a few minutes away from the center of Copenhagen, is Walid Al-Bustani’s apartment, in a stone building sealed by an automated gate. Trying to ask about him is not easy, as there is no one on the street, except for a group of students, among them a girl in a hijab, who passed loudly in front of the building before taking a turn to the next street, instantly returning complete silence to this one. An Asian man came out of the building but could not be helpful, as he said that he could not speak English.

The names on the “door phone” panel gave no indication of the presence of Bustani’s apartment in the building, nor did the panel display any other Arab name. After a few minutes, the attempts to press every button on the panel yielded a result: the voice of a man willing to answer “a question” but not to “receive visitors”. In very clear English, the man certified that this was the right address but that “Walid is not here. He suddenly disappeared, about a year ago”.

The neighbor said that the Danish police had asked about Bustani several times, and had even broken into his apartment once, but that he does not know the reason for this. He assures that he only knew him superficially, and that when the police broke into the house, he had assumed that the matter was related to Bustani’s child, as Walid had once told him about “problems he was having with the Danish government, as it had threatened to take his child away from him because he suffered from psychological problems”. He asserts that Walid was a calm man, who rarely received visitors, except for a few young men and teenagers.

Only two streets away from Bustani’s apartment, in what looks like a large housing complex, lies Ali Ibrahim’s apartment. The name of the young Lebanese man is still found on the “idoor phone” panel, as are two other Arab names. The first is an Iraqi, who lives in the apartment facing that of Ibrahim, and denies ever having met him or knowing anything about him. He asserts that he has only been in Denmark for a few months. The sound of a door opening on the second floor is heard, without anyone appearing. Upon taking a few steps up the stairs, a man in his forties appears, seeming reluctant to show himself. When I asked him if he spoke English, he replied in Arabic: “I heard you speaking Arabic”. The man is of Turkish origin, and has not seen Ibrahim in a long time: “I think he went back to his country; I think he is Lebanese”. The two men have not heard anything about Ali, whose name still hangs on his apartment door as well as on his postbox, and both certify that the Danish police has not asked about him nor tried to enter his apartment.

Contradictory Information

The Scandinavian Waqf or Al-Tauba (Redemption) mosque, a recurring name among the places where Muslims are found in Denmark, is a mosque which the three prisoners certified that they frequented, although both Bustani and Assaad mentioned the Taiba mosque as the mosque with the ideology closest to their own.

At the Scadinavian Waqf mosque, once again, the name Ali Ibrahim does not “remind” anyone of anything, and the most recurrent answer was that he may be one of the hundreds of people who flock to pray at the Waqf. This in fact does not apply to either Assaad or Bustani, as the head of media and politics at the Waqf, Bilal Assaad (a Lebanese from Akkar), certifies that “they used to visit the Waqf regularly a long time ago, but stopped coming here after their inclination became “Jihadist” and moved to other mosques which they found to be closer to their ideology”. He also indicates that they both had “family problems with regard to polygamy, and felt unsettled”.

The mosque to which both Bustani and Mahmoud Assaad had moved is the Taiba mosque. Those who follow the affairs of Islamists in Denmark certify that the infiltration of the mosque by Danish intelligence and the heavy surveillance of it had led those who prayed there to disperse into other mosques.

Those in charge at the Waqf, which is considered the largest mosque in Copenhagen, assert that the supervisors of the Taiba mosque are four kind-hearted young men, but that this kind of reputation has become attached to the mosque as a result of “inaccurate” media reports, and because of “the blind faith Danish people have in their media”. They consider that “Jihadist Salafism” does not need a mosque or a place of prayer in order to infiltrate the youth, as those who have the “predisposition” resort to the Internet, where they find whatever information they seek and contact whatever groups they wish.

However, the hypothesis of communication through the Internet does not contradict the suspicions that surround certain people, among them “Abu Ahmad”, who is said to surround himself with a group of young men, as his ideas seem to echo with the youth. One such idea is that “it is the right of Muslims to rob Danish stores, because they are considered spoils of war, as there is no contract between Infidels (Danish nationals) and Muslims”. Some Muslim clerics in Denmark consider that the matter cannot be classified as a phenomenon, and that Danish mosques are unable to “recruit” Muslims or increase their “radicalism”. However, some of those who knew Bustani in Denmark say that he was a pious man when he first came to Copenhagen, but that he began in the mid-1990s to move to a new level of radicalism and extremism.

The “password” sent by Bustani to someone in Denmark did not do much in terms of facilitating access, as the person concerned assured me that he knew Bustani before his views became radical, and that the latter later began to avoid him, as he considered him to be “lax in religion”. He added that Bustani’s role has been blown out of proportion, as “his intelligence is limited and he could hardly have planned anything”. When asked about Bustani’s claims of being a follower of Al-Qaeda, he said: “I see that Walid has changed a lot, and is no longer the person I once knew”. He certifies that Bustani was in contact with Mustafa Ramadan, a.k.a. “Abu Muhammad the Lebanese”, as they shared the same Jihadist ideology, and that “Ramadan was way ahead of Walid, and had disappeared for a long time before we heard that he had been killed in Iraq”.

Asking about the “Danish Fatah Al-Islam” prisoners in the country in which they spent nearly 17 years of their lives is not easy. Moroccan national M.S., whom Mahmoud Assaad had said he knew very well, and despite his promises of speaking in an interview in person and not on the phone, “remained abroad in Holland” for a week, although he had assured me that he would return two days after our first phone call. It is noteworthy that this same person holds information about “Abu Ahmad”, none of which he revealed, not even the name or the address of the mosque he might be found at. He pretexted “talking on the phone”, indicating that his phone was under surveillance.

Abu Ahmad, as he was described by some, is a young man in his thirties, Lebanese or Lebanese-Palestinian. Many people assured us that he would refuse to speak to anyone, and that he was difficult to reach. Some Muslims deem it unlikely that he would be leading a group or engaging in “suspicious” teachings. They consider him to be one of those people who chose the wrong path to study religion, and who now teach it with even greater error. They belittle the importance of his movement, and dismiss it as nonsense. Four young men, one of them only 16 years old, had been accused of planning terrorist activities in 2005, and from among the evidence of their involvement presented before the court was their relationship to “Abu Ahmad”. Many consider that the most dangerous problem afflicting mosques in Denmark and in other European countries is that of people following some religious cleric or other, who “has taught himself by himself, and has understood Islam in a different way, one characterized by extremism”.

In Copenhagen, Bustani’s first wife told the story of the first phase, that of fleeing Lebanon, when they left Tripoli and went to the Ain Al-Hilweh refugee camp. From there they traveled to Greece, where they stayed with a relative, and then to Libya, where they lived for two years, until someone managed to get them visas and they moved to Denmark. Bustani’s divorcee in Denmark certifies that he has not divorced her according to Islamic law, and that she is “shocked at what Walid has come to”. Indeed, she witnessed the phase of his radicalization, which started in 1996 when he began to forbid her from watching television or putting pictures in the house, and to ask her to cover her face. Nevertheless, she believes that he was exploited because he had a constant drive for “resistance” in Iraq and in Afghanistan, especially during the period in which he met Mustafa Ramadan. Although she was not allowed to appear before men, Ramadan’s name is the only one she remembers from among his friends.

Bustani’s first wife avoids talking to the media, as she “fears for her children”. She still lives in Denmark against his will, as he had sent her to Lebanon in 2001 in order to “register the children at a religious school”. However, after she learned about his second marriage, she took her five children and moved back to Denmark. She says “he used to come visit his children two or three times a week, and would spend two or three hours with them”. This contradicts the claims made by Bustani’s second wife, who certifies that he used to visit them daily.

Some pieces of information coincide while others contradict each other or complete stories we had heard in Lebanon. Some people are cooperative, while others wonder about the reason behind researching such a topic, since the media and journalists are “prejudiced against them, and deal with them on the basis that they are criminals without considering the reasons that led to this”. Others still have reservations about allowing filming or attending Friday prayer.

Nevertheless, everyone agrees on classifying the presence of European countries among those that “export mujahideen” in a transitory framework, and on not considering it a “phenomenon”. Yet there remains “Abu Ahmad” and “Abu Saud”, and before them “Abu Muhammad the Lebanese”: prominent names which cannot be ignored in that respect.

Denmark “does not interfere in investigations” and intelligence services “do not comment”

The willingness of the three “Danish” detainees in Roumieh Prison in Lebanon to tell their stories was aimed at making them heard at the Danish level, and at bringing to those concerned some of their questions, among them prominently “why did Denmark abandon us?”, alongside their accusations against the government of treating them with “racism” because they “have black hair”, i.e. are Arabs.

Having committed to improving its relations with the Middle East after the Cartoon Crisis, the Ministry of Immigration Affairs in Denmark welcomes the opportunity to comment on such “accusations”. Ambassador Lars Thuesen certifies that those who have the right to live on Danish soil, whether they have a permanent residency, as in the case of Walid Bustani and Mahmoud Assaad, or carry the Danish citizenship, as in that of Ali Ibrahim, are treated as “Danish citizens, and the Ministry follows their cases abroad, regardless of the charges held against them”.

He clarifies that the only condition which could prevent them from offering such assistance would be the refusal of the “prisoner” himself. He adds that the Ministry reviews the accusations fielded against those arrested with the government holding them, without interfering in the details of the investigation or asking for the release of one prisoner or another. Indeed, he considers that the Danish government cannot possibly interfere in the course of an investigation or in the internal affairs of any country. He explains that the department in charge of following up this issue in the Ministry of Foreign Affair conducts prisoner visitations everywhere in the world, at an average of once every three months. During those visits, the focus is on the situation of the prisoners and on whether they are being exposed to human rights abuses, as well as on providing them with medication and other essential needs.

Digressing, he says: “we have no hope that their situation will be as if they were in Danish prisons”. He clarifies that the Danish government cannot afford to hire defense lawyers for those accused in different cases around the world, but can provide lawyers to those who are willing to pay their fees themselves.

Concerning the suspension of monthly stipends for those arrested in Lebanon, Thuesen explains that such a decision falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Finance, and that there was a decision by the Danish government to stop granting financial assistance after a certain period of time, three months or more after the citizen leaves Danish soil, regardless of whether they are imprisoned or not, and that defining that period of time is linked to the nature of the assistance the individual was receiving while residing in Denmark. He sees no problem in the families of any of those arrested or convicted returning to Denmark if they hold legal residence permits, as the return of former prisoners to Denmark often takes place quite normally, even if they have been convicted on certain charges. However, the final decision in these matters belongs to the Ministry of the Interior and to Danish intelligence services, which now have the legal power to demand the deportation of anyone without a trial.

Thuesen refuses to comment on any of the three cases, or on the “accusation” fielded by Ali Ibrahim against the Danish government of having been behind his arrest in Lebanon. He considers that in these matters one can only refer to Danish intelligence services, which replied to this matter by “no comment” via their media office.

Copenhagen’s mosques… and its imams

There is no law that regulates the presence of mosques in Denmark. Indeed, a mosque there does not necessarily imply the presence of a dome or a minaret. It may just be a vast apartment, or a small building that a few young men turned into a mosque or a place of prayer.

The Al-Tauba/Scandinavian Waqf mosque is considered the largest, and is the only one which functions as an institution, with around 1000 members who pay monthly subscriptions that vary between 20 and 50 US Dollars. Despite the fact that the “Waqf” does not meet the expectations of many Islamists, nine of its members were accused of “high treason” against Denmark, because of “turning to foreign forces for support” within the framework of protests against the cartoons. Those in charge at the mosque claim that it seeks to give out a truthful image of Muslims.

The Taiba mosque is the most notorious mosque in Denmark, having been accused of being frequented by “radicals”, and because of information indicating that “Abu Ahmad” used to pray there before the mosque was “infiltrated” by Danish intelligence services. There is recurring information that he now frequents the Quba mosque, a mosque whose address was not “recognized” by any Muslims, except for Moroccan national M.S., who stated that it was located in “Omme”, but could not provide the specific address, although he claimed to know how to get there.

Mustafa Ramadan (Amir Al-Majameeh)

He has turned into a symbol in Iraqi “Jihadist” circles, after he was killed in a US raid west of Baghdad on September 17, 2004. In Lebanon, Mustafa Ramadan was nicknamed “Abu Al-Shaheed”, and while staying in Denmark, “Amir Al-Majameeh” became known as “Abu Muhammad the Lebanese” after he was killed in Iraq along with his eldest son “Abu Suheil”, who had not yet reached sixteen years of age. He is a Beiruti of Kurdish origin who married a Lebanese woman from Majdel Anjar at the end of the 1980s and moved with her to Denmark.

Those who knew Ramadan in Denmark say that he was a young man in his thirties, and one of the earlier immigrants. He was religiously committed from the start and sought to take interest in young “newcomers” and to advise them of the necessity of preserving their religion and traditions.

He is the father of five children, the eldest killed alongside him in Iraq, while the others live with his widow who recently re-married. Some information indicates that “Abu Muhammad”, who was recruited in Denmark, was close to a group of Kurdish fundamentalists, and that his relationship with Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi began through his activities with the Ansar Al-Sunna group, an organization headed by Mullah Krekar, a resident of Norway. His relatives refuse to speak after “what they went through” following his death. Yet his name has become recurrent in many circles, and especially in the lectures of “Salafist Jihadist” theorists, who are “eaten up” by envy because he went to Iraq before them, and consider that any phase of their present lives is only a step towards following in his path.