STOCKHOLM, Sweden - The Iraqi-Kurdish cleric Mullah Krekar, who was released from police custody last month after a Norwegian court found him not guilty of death threats against a fellow Kurd, has made good on his threat to sue the state for putting him in jail. Mullah Krekar, whose real name is Najmuddin Faraj, is suing the Norwegian government for 200,000 kroner ($24,500) for enduring more than nine months in a Norwegian jail, his lawyer Brynjar Meling told Norway’s TV2. “There are two issues that justify the compensation claim: One is the number of days he has been inside (prison). And it is a fact that you also receive redress when they have destroyed your good name and reputation,” the attorney said. In October, Krekar was sentenced to 18 years in prison after threatening a fellow Kurd, Halmat Goran, during a television interview in Norway in February 2015. The preacher had earlier issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, against Goran when the latter published a video several years ago in which he torched the copy of the Quran. He had said on television that “the responsibility to execute the punishment belongs to the Muslim community.” The verdict was appealed, and Krekar was acquitted and freed last month. After the acquittal, Meling told a press conference that Krekar had “just interpreted what the Quran and Sharia law say about burning the Quran - that it deserves death. It was not his personal opinion or any threat.” Despite the acquittal, the 59-year-old cleric still risks being extradited to Italy to face terror charges there. He is accused of having a hand in planning terrorist activities and is the head of the organization Rawti Shax. Krekar was born in Sulaimani in the Kurdistan Region and is the father of four children. He completed a master’s degree in Islamic studies in Pakistan and moved to Norway in 1991, where he established the Salafist jihadi group Ansar al-Islam in 1994. Since 2006, Krekar has been on the United Nations’ terror list. The Norwegian conservative party in 2002 raised the issue of national security and demanded his deportation. Iraq has demanded his extradition for trial, but that has been denied by Norway, which prohibits the expulsion of an individual without a guarantee against the death penalty or torture. In 2013, negotiations for Krekar’s deportation to Iraq failed, after Iraqi officials could not promise Norway that the cleric would not face torture or execution after deportation.
