Berlin court convicts Danish imam for seeking murder of ‘Zionist Jews’
The verdict said that Danish imam Sheikh Abu Bilal Ismail considered Jews as “criminals who kill prophets and children and Jews are worse than wild beasts in the world of the jungle."
By BENJAMIN WEINTHALUpdated: DECEMBER 10, 2015 04:42A SCENE from Berlin, with the Oberbaum Bridge in the foreground(photo credit: REUTERS)
BERLIN – A German criminal court has fined Danish imam Sheikh Abu Bilal Ismail for incitement to hatred after convicting him of calling at a Berlin mosque for the extermination of Jews during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge.The Jerusalem Post obtained a copy of the 16-page court verdict on Tuesday.It said that Ismail had been fined €1,300 for delivering a fiery anti-Western and anti-Jewish sermon in July 2014 in which he said it was necessary to “destroy the Zionist Jews...,” and to “count them and kill them to the very last one. Don’t spare a single one of them...Make them suffer terribly.”The verdict said that Ismail considered Jews as “criminals who kill prophets and children and Jews are worse than wild beasts in the world of the jungle,” and that “Allah should kill Jews.”It found that Ismail, 47 and a father of nine, had delivered a “hostile and hate-filled view toward Jews as a population group in Germany.”Ismail, according the court, fulfilled the criteria of inciting hatred against Jews as well as non-Jewish groups in Germany. Ismail targeted “Jews with hatred, as well as all other non-Muslim groups living in Germany,” the verdict said.The court also said the Lebanese- born cleric had shown deep contempt for the United States and Europe in his sermon, and that his assault on European civilization and Zionists had met the definition of incitement.“Zionist Jews is not a fixed term. The term does not refer to all Jews who live in Israel... Zionism is a political current and also an opinion that one can or cannot have,” no matter where they live, the verdict said.Ismail delivered his sermon, which was videotaped, to a packed audience at al-Nur mosque, which is widely viewed as hotbed of radical Islamism. The court translated the sermon into German, and its contents make up 11 pages of the verdict.
Ismail defended his sermon by saying the term “Zionist Jews” was directed at Israeli soldiers fighting in the Gaza Strip last year. He added that he lives peacefully with all religious groups in Denmark.