The head imam of a mosque in Brussels has had his right to residency in Belgium revoked by State Secretary for Asylum and Migration Sammy Mahdi, the Brussels Times reported on Thursday.
According to the report, the imam, Mohamed Toujgani, had his residency withdrawn in October of last year with Mahdi citing “signs of a serious threat to national security.”
Toujgani heads the Al Khalil mosque in the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek, the largest mosque in Belgium.
“We want to send out a signal: those who sow hatred, divide our society and threaten our security, are not welcome in our country – not today, but also not in the years to come,” Mahdi was quoted as having said.
“In the past we have given too much leeway to radical preachers. This man was probably the most influential preacher in Belgium. With this decision we make a difference,” he added.
Mahdi based his decision on information from the security services and said he did not take it lightly. Specifics are not yet known.
Toujgani, who has Moroccan nationality, was ordered to leave the country and has to comply with an entry ban for the next ten years.
The imam had been facing criticism for quite some time prior to the ban, noted TheBrussels Times.
In 2019, a ten-year-old video of him surfaced in which he called for burning Jews.
The Brussels district of Molenbeek has a high concentration of Muslim immigrants. Several terrorists who carried out attacks in Europe came from Molenbeek, including Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who was the mastermind behind the Islamic State (ISIS) attacks in Paris in November of 2015.