Berlin authorities have deported the main organizer of an Islamic conference planned in the German capital next month for his alleged radical anti-Israel and anti-U.S. stance, authorities said. Fadi Madi, spokesman for the International Movement against American and Zionist Globalization and Supremacy, was deported to his home country of Lebanon on Saturday evening, the Berliner Morgenpost reported Sunday. A Berlin police spokesman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, confirmed Madi had been sent back to Beirut. Madi was the main organizer for the Oct. 1-3 Arab Islamic Congress in Europe, which on its Web site urges "the liberation of all the occupied territories and countries in struggle against the American-Zionist hegemony and occupation."
Organizers say they expect between 500 and 800 participants, but have declined to say who will speak and where in Berlin the gathering will be held. "Whoever, as a foreign national, does not recognize the laws of our country and uses Germany as a platform from which to campaign against other countries and praise terror attacks forfeits his rights to stay in Germany," Berlin's interior minister Ehrhart Koerting told the newspaper "Berliner Morgenpost". Federal prosecutors had been investigating Madi on suspicion he belonged to a banned organization and approved of the move to deport him, the newspaper reported.
