Ahlul Bayt News Agency ; Cologne, Germany - The Central Council of Muslims in Germany said Sunday it had elected a new chairman, Aiman Mazyek.
He triumphed over the incumbent ethnic German chairman, Ayyub Axel Koehler, in an executive poll on Saturday by 9 votes to 6.
The council said Koehler had withdrawn to an advisory committee.
The council, which mainly unites Muslims in Germany of non-Turkish extraction, has been among the more forceful Islamic voices in the German media.
Both Mazyek and Koehler this month criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel as tactless for honouring a Danish cartoonist who four years ago depicted the Prophet Mohammed wearing a bomb as a turban.
Mazyek, who founded a major German Islamic website, islam.de, and also preaches on a website operated by SWR public television, was previously general secretary of the council. He has studied Arabic in Cairo and graduated from a German university in political science.
In the announcement, Mazyek spoke of encouraging unity in the council and expanding the council's panel of theological advisers.
End item/ 129
