(AFP) Norway announced Thursday that it had extradited a fundamentalist Islamic preacher to Italy, despite the ongoing coronavirus epidemic, where he has been sentenced to jail for leading a jihadist network.
“Krekar is no longer in Norway. Krekar has today been extradited to Italy,” Norwegian Justice Minister Monica Maeland told a press conference.
The 63-year-old Iraqi Kurd — known as Mullah Krekar, but named Najumuddin Faraj Ahmad — was arrested in July 2019 after he was convicted in his absence by an Italian court and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
The Italian court found him guilty of having led a now-dismantled jihadist network, Rawti Shax, a Kurdish movement with alleged links to the Islamic State group and which is suspected of planning attacks in the West.
