France Deports Islamic Mosque Leader

PARIS – France deported an Islamic mosque leader Thursday who was accused of leading a group that advocates terrorism, the Interior Ministry said.

The expulsion of Midhat Guler is part of a growing French crackdown against radical Muslim clerics.

Guler, a Turkish national, was taken out of France by plane, but the ministry did not indicate what the destination was.

“This expulsion is motivated by the threat that this person represented to the public order,” the ministry said in a statement. “Mr. Guler is in fact a leader in France of a Turkish Islamic extremist movement called ‘Kaplan’ that preaches use of violence and terrorism.”

The ministry statement was an apparent reference to a group that calls for establishing an Islamic state in Turkey as a breeding ground for Islamic terrorists.

Guler, 45, was the leader of a mosque near the Bastille area of eastern Paris, the ministry said. He has lived in France for 28 years and has five children.

The French government has pledged to deport those who preach Islamic fundamentalism. But it suffered an embarrassment last month when it expelled an Algerian Muslim prayer leader, Abdelkader Bouziane, who condoned wife-beating and allegedly made calls to violence. Days after Bouziane was put on a plane to Algiers, a court ruled the deportation was unwarranted and said he could return to France.

Bouziane, 52, an imam at a mosque in Venissieux, a suburb of the southeastern city of Lyon, has said he plans to return to France.

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