Source/Credit: Agence France-Presse | Brussels
By Staff Reporter | March 13, 2012
A mosque in Brussels was set aflame on Monday, killing its 47-year-old imam and injuring a worshiper, in an arson attack.
The attack destroyed a large part of the building, police said according to the reports by AFP.
Police officials at the scene said, according to AFP, the imam died following an attack on the Rida Shiite mosque.
Rida Shiite is the largest of the four Shiite mosques located in Brussels and its surrounding areas.
"There is a lot of damage, apparently the entire mosque, or almost the entire mosque, burned down," police spokeswoman Marie Verbeke stated according to AFP.
"A suspect was taken into custody at the scene," Verbeke tld AFP, adding that it was too early to talk about motives.
According to AFP, the suspect's name has not yet been released.
The imam, whose name was also being withheld, succumbed to the fumes from the fire and the second person who was with him at the time of the attack was injured, but not seriously.
Anderlecht mayor Vincent Van Goidsenhoven said, Belga news agency reported, the suspect threw a Molotov cocktail at the mosque.
Several dozen local residents and members of the mosque congregation gathered at the scene of fire immediately.
"I brought my son so that he can see blind hate, what it can do," said Ismael Ben Mohammad, 40, adding that he felt "a sadness difficult to describe," AFP report stated
The imam left behind four children according to Abdel Adouzeyneb, a 39-year-old real estate agent.
"He was a person who was loved by everybody," Adouzeyneb said according to AFP. "He was open, well integrated, smiling and happy."
According to AFP report, Joelle Milquet, Belgian interior minister, said she was "very shocked by the events that have occurred" which she condemned "with firmness and indignation."
Further, according to AFP, regional minister Fadila Laanan said on her Twitter account that she was "scandalised by this attack in my community against a mosque."
"A man is dead and that is despicable, nothing can excuse such an act."
An imam was previously targeted in Brussels in 1989 when Saudi-born Abdullah Muhammad al-Ahdal was shot dead.
al-Ahdal served as imam in the Grand Mosque of Brussels and was killed inside the mosque on March of that year by an armed man.
His killing was claimed by a small pro-Iranian group in Lebanon who accussed him of being too moderate and of having rejected the death fatwa slapped on writer Salman Rushdie.
-- Brussels: Attack, arson at Shiite mosque leaves Imam dead, worshiper injured
-- Ahmadiyya Times
-- Adopted from AFP report
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