Berlin Police Raid Milli Görüş Mosque

Ger­man media is report­ing that Berlin police have raid­ed homes and offices sus­pect­ed of coro­n­avirus aid fraud, includ­ing a Mil­lî Görüş mosque. Accord­ing to the Berlin­er Zeitung report:

Sep­tem­ber 2, 2021 Berlin – Due to large-scale fraud with Coro­na emer­gency aid, the Berlin police searched sev­er­al homes and offices on Thurs­day morn­ing. Accord­ing to the Berlin­er Zeitung, the inves­ti­ga­tors are tar­get­ing the mosque asso­ci­a­tion “Haci Bayram”, which has its head­quar­ters on Kolonies­traße in Gesund­brun­nen. An asso­ci­a­tion for cul­tur­al inter­ac­tion is also involved in the crim­i­nal machi­na­tions. Dur­ing the raid, evi­dence was secured in Reinick­endorf, Wed­ding, Gesund­brun­nen, Span­dau and Kreuzberg, the pub­lic pros­e­cu­tor’s office announced. Three pre­lim­i­nary pro­ceed­ings are led because of sub­sidy fraud against the asso­ci­a­tions, it was fur­ther said. In the ear­ly morn­ing, five search war­rants and one arrest war­rant were exe­cut­ed, accord­ing to police. Inves­ti­gat­ed are against three sus­pects who, in their own names or in the name of asso­ci­a­tions ille­git­i­mate­ly applied for and received Coro­na aid worth 47,000 EUR. Although the asso­ci­a­tions con­cerned had not incurred any com­pens­able loss­es as a result of the pan­dem­ic, they are said to have received sub­si­dies, accord­ing to the pub­lic pros­e­cu­tor’s office. In one case, the funds were alleged­ly trans­ferred from the asso­ci­a­tion’s account to the pri­vate account of a defen­dant on the same day. [Trans­lat­ed by DeepL with edits]

Read the rest here.

Accord­ing to Turk­ish media, the Haci Bayram Mosque belongs to the Mil­lî Görüş move­ment. Mil­lî Görüş is a Turk­ish reli­gious and polit­i­cal move­ment found­ed by Necmet­tin Erbakan, Erdoğan’s polit­i­cal men­tor, which has called for an end to the sec­u­lar regime in Turkey. The GIOR has report­ed about the Ger­man gov­ern­men­t’s asser­tion that Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Erdoğan’s AKP par­ty has inten­si­fied its rela­tions with Mil­lî Görüş in Germany.

Anoth­er Ger­man media arti­cle says that one of the accused has uniden­ti­fied con­nec­tions to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood.