Fed: Sheik should consider leaving Australia: Andrews

AAP General News (Australia)
04-09-2007
Fed: Sheik should consider leaving Australia: Andrews

By David Crawshaw

CANBERRA, April 9 AAP - Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews today called on controversial
Muslim cleric Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali to think about leaving Australia.

But he stressed there was no possibility of stripping the self-styled mufti of Australia
of his citizenship.

Mr Andrews repeated calls for the outspoken sheik to resign amid a growing storm about
his increasingly incendiary public statements.

Calls for the sheik to be sacked intensified today after reports he travelled to Tehran
and urged Muslims worldwide to support the Iranian government of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad,
whose nuclear ambitions have raised the ire of the international community.

"The mufti of Australia has called on the Islamic world to stand in the trenches with
the Islamic Republic of Iran which possesses the might and the power," the Iranian Alalam
News reported in Arabic on its website on Saturday.

The mufti's salary was suspended last year after he used a religious address to compare
immodestly dressed women with uncovered meat and suggest they invited sexual assault.

Mr Andrews today urged the Egyptian-born Sheik Alhilali to quit his post and consider
his future in Australia.

"The cleric should resign immediately," he said.

"The Australian community has lost patience with the sheik.

"The sheik needs to say if he wishes to continue as a citizen of Australia or reside
in an alternate country."

Despite the strong words, Mr Andrews' spokeswoman said there were no grounds for cancelling
the Muslim leader's citizenship.

Sheik Alhilali was granted citizenship by the Labor government in 1990 after political
intervention by former prime minister Paul Keating to prevent his deportation.

The sheik had been slated to be refused Australian citizenship, and would have had
to leave the country.

Several Islamic community leaders have spoken out against Sheik Alhilali recently,
complaining that he does not represent their views.

The sheik was recently accused of failing to account for $47,000 in donations raised
in Australia and earmarked for victims of last year's Israel-Hezbollah war.

It has been reported that after taking charge of the money in Lebanon, the mufti gave
at least $12,400 to a supporter of the Iraqi insurgency, Sheik Bilal Shaaban, to fund
his radio station.

AAP dcr/cb/maur/de

KEYWORD: SHEIK ANDREWS

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