Berlin police raid mosque over 'terror financing'

Police raided a mosque and several other buildings in Berlin on Tuesday morning in an operation into suspected terrorism financing, prosecutors said.

State criminal police, intelligence officers as well as special police forces took part in the raids, which included the As-Sahaba mosque in the Berlin neighborhood of Wedding.

One of the main suspects was identified as Ahmad A., an imam at the mosque who preaches under the name of Abul Baraa.

The 45-year-old is suspected of sending money to an Islamist fighter in Syria "for purchasing military equipment to carry out terrorist criminal acts," prosecutors said on Twitter.

Authorities did not immediately release further details about the raids or provide further details about when the alleged money transfer took place.

The As-Sahaba mosque is under surveillance by Germany's domestic intelligence agency and is considered an important meeting point for members of Germany's radical Salafist scene, according to the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper.

The mosque was founded in 2010 by the German-Egyptian Islamist Reda Seyam, who is accused of taking part in a terror attack in Bali, according to the paper. He later left Germany to travel to Syria to become the "education minister" for the militant "Islamic State" (IS) group.

rs/rc  (AFP, dpa, Reuters)

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