(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Nine local residents believed to be Wahabis have been detained in Bashkortostan on suspicion of illegal possession of arms and ousting the imam of the mosque in the town of Baimak, the Bashkir Interior Ministry press service reported.
Four of the detainees were arrested under a court judgment and five were placed under a travel ban, the report says.
One of the detainees had been sentenced in 2002 to 15 years of jail for blasting gas pipelines in Kirov region as a member of a criminal gang. Another detainee had a criminal record of armed robbery.
Earlier the imam of the city mosque in Baimak filed a complaint with the Baimak district prosecutor's office to hold accountable persons who had seized the mosque. Law enforcers probing the complaint found out that on September 2 a group of aggressively-minded young people prevented the imam from conducting the Friday service in the mosque.
The imam was driven out of the mosque by force and the group declared the election of a new imam who had studied at the Islamic University of Medina. Parishioners denounced the actions of the young men and declared the election of the new imam illegal.
However, the young people persisted and announced intensions of removing the imams of mosques in the towns of Temyasovo and Sibai.
According to the Federal Security Service (FSB) department for Bashkortostan, a search in the homes of the detainees on September 23 resulted in the seizure of several pieces of arms, cartriges and components of explosive devices were seized. Investigators established that the Baimak Wahabis had been trained at a secret camp in Chechnya in 1999. Some of them had recruited volunteers for training at camps in Chechnya for a long time, operatives say.
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28 September 2011 - 20:30
News ID: 268512
Nine local residents believed to be Wahabis have been detained in Bashkortostan on suspicion of illegal possession of arms and ousting the imam of the mosque in the town of Baimak, the Bashkir Interior Ministry press service reported.
