AL-QAEDA LINKS: Far-right has ties with Islamic extreme By PHILIPP JAKLIN and HUGH WILLIAMSON
One of the people identified by the US government as providing financial support to the al-Qaeda terrorist network is also a well-known figure in the European far-right political movement.
The link is likely to raise new concerns over ties between Islamic and rightwing extremists.
Ahmed Huber, a 74-year-old Swiss businessman and former journalist who converted to Islam in the 1960s, is a board member of Nada Management, a financial services and consultancy company which is part of the international Al Taqwa group. The US says this group has long acted as financial advisers to al-Qaeda.
Mr Huber, who is based in Bern, is known in Switzerland and Germany as an Islamic fundamentalist who attempts to forge links to far-right and neo-Nazi movements.
A spokesman for Germany's office for the protection of the constitution, the internal intelligence agency, said yesterday that Mr Huber "sees himself as a mediator between Islam and right-wing groups". He also belongs to the revisionist movement, which believes the Holocaust did not take place, the spokesman said.
Klaus Beier, spokesman for the NPD, one of Germany's main far-right political parties, said Mr Huber has often addressed NPD events.
Mr Huber confirmed that he had had contact with associates of Osama bin Laden at an Islamic conference in Beirut. He is quoted in the Swiss media as saying that these people "are very discreet, well-educated, very intelligent people".
In interviews on Wednesday Mr Huber denied that Nada Management was linked to terrorism, although he admitted the company's sponsors were wealthy Muslims from Malaysia and the Gulf region. He said he had been interviewed on Wednesday by Swiss prosecutors but later released.
Two other board members of Nada Management, Youssef Nada and Ali Himmat, were also questioned by police in Lugano, Switzerland. Italian police searched their homes in Campione d'Italia, a tiny Italian enclave near Lugano long known as a tax haven. After September 11 several far-right leaders and associations in Germany welcomed publicly the terrorist attacks.
Intelligence experts say the Islamic and far-right movements often share a common hatred of the US and of Jews.