Copenhagen imam accused of calling for killing of Jews

Police have been contacted after a video of an imam appearing to call for the murder of Jews in a Copenhagen mosque caused outrage in Denmark.

Imam Mundhir Abdallah has been reported to police in the Danish capital after he was filmed citing a hadith, a teaching of the Prophet Muhammad, at a sermon during Friday prayers in Copenhagen's Nørrebro neighbourhood.

The sermon was delivered at the Al-Faruq Mosque on 31 March with the video posted to YouTube and Facebook on Sunday (7 May). Abdallah stood in front of a black flag with the Shahadah written in Arabic, similar to those used by jihadist groups such as Isis or al-Qaeda.

The hadith said that the Day of Judgement "... will not come unless the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them.

"The Jews will hide behind rocks and the trees. But the rocks and the trees will say, 'Oh Musli, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him," according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri).

The imam declared that there will soon be a "caliphate" under Islamic law, or Sharia, that will unite the world's Muslims and liberate the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem "from the filth of the Zionists".

The chairperson of the Jewish Community in Denmark, Dan Rosenberg Asmussen, said after being handed a translation that he considers Abdallah's words to be anti-Semitic.

The Jewish community leader told the Politiken newspaper: "We are concerned weak and impressionable people may perceive this kind of preaching as a clear call to violence and terror against Jews."

In a statement posted to Facebook, Denmark's Immigration and Integration Minister, Inger Stojberg, called Mundhir Abdallah's sermon "awful".

"This is completely preposterous, undemocratic and awful," the centre-right Venstre politician said. "But it also shows why we need to lead a harsh and consistent policy. We cannot and should not accept this!"

The Politiken newspaper reported that Abdallah is connected to the controversial Hizb ut-Tahrir group, which has called for the return of an Islamic caliphate.

Last month a 17-year-old girl, the first female to face terror charges in Denmark, told a court she found Isis ''exciting''. She was accused of planning terror attacks against two schools in the country.

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