Mullah Krekar

Mullah Krekar (Kurdish:مهلا کرێکار), (born Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad July 7, 1956) is a Kurdish Sunni Islamist Islamic scholar who came to Norway as a refugee from northern Iraq in 1991. His wife and four children have Norwegian citizenship, but not Krekar himself. He speaks Kurdish, Arabic, Persian and English.

Krekar was the original leader of the Islamist armed group Ansar al-Islam, which was set up and commenced operations in Kurdistan while he had refugee status in Norway. Krekar claims, however, not to have had foreknowledge of the various terrorist attacks performed by the group he was leading. Since February 2003 he has an expulsion order against him, which is suspended pending Iraqi government guarantees that he will not face torture or execution. Norway is committed to international treaties which prohibit the expulsion of an individual without such a guarantee.

Authorities in the Kurdistan Regional Government have repeatedly asked for Ahmad ("Krekar") to be extradited from Norway. The death penalty remains on the books in the Kurdistan region. Most death sentences have been changed into life sentences since the Kurdistanian authorities took power in 1992, the exception being that eleven alleged members of Ansar al-Islam were hanged in the regional capital of Arbil in October 2006. He has as of 8 December 2006 been on the UN terror list, and as of 8 November 2007 been judged by the High Court of Norway as a "danger to national security".

On March 26, 2012 he was sentenced to 5 years in prison for making repeated death threats against Norwegian politicians and other persons if they pursued certain civil actions against him. He has appealed this prison sentence. The next day, March 27, 2012, he was arrested by the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) and Norwegian Police and taken into protective custody and incarceration. This occurred after certain additional statements of a threatening nature were linked to him, suggesting that others might take retaliatory actions against Norwegians if his civil prison sentence were implemented.