Caliphate of Cologne

The caliphate of Cologne is an islamist movement radical. It was founded in 1984 by the Turkish Imam Metin Kaplan and its father Cemaliddin Kaplan, died in May 1995.

This organization rests mainly on 15 articles inspired of the Sourate S of the Coran, for example the rule n° 7 enacts that there is “ no possibility of agreement with the incroyants and the political regimes which represent them. ”

Officially, the organization is prohibited on the German ground since the December 12th, 2001, however Metin Kaplan had there continued its activities.

The whole of the movements of the caliphate of Cologne, is called federation of associations and the Islamic communities (ICCB), or Mouvement Kaplanci. She preaches religious proselytism, and wishes the inversion of the Turkish republic and the restoration of the Califat, to impose an Islamic regime. She rejects the democracy considered as depending about the unbelief.

Paramilitary units

The movement had paramilitary units which had paraded in the stage of Cologne with factitious kalachnikovs. They had as a practice to meet to listen to speeches in which calls to the murder of incroyants were launched.

The envoys of the caliphate of Cologne recruited militants for the troops of armed interventions, for that of the military exercises of preselection were exempted in Germany and Anatolia. Gathering more than 1.500 combatants, including 1.300 in Germany, Metin Kaplan, sent them to fight in Bosnia-Herzégovine, Afghanistan and Chetchnia. At the beginning of the Years 1990, the Movement Kaplanci, counted more than 5.000 militants.

One allotted to members of his paramilitary units, elimination, in May 1997, of a competitor Imam, a young Turkish doctor Halil Ibrahim Sofu , which was made call the “Caliph de Berlin”. Metin Kaplan, was challenged in March 1999 and was maintained in detention; Turkey claimed its extradition but the German government refused, asserting refusal of the Turkish government to guarantee the safe life with the Imam.

Businesses

In the business of the Terrorist cell of Hamburg, the tracks seem to go up towards the caliphate of Cologne.

It would be also implied in the business of the attack thwarted against the market of Christmas of Strasbourg (Alsace) in December 2000.

In 2001, according to a report/ratio of the secret services Turkish, the caliphate of Cologne had envisaged to celebrate the 75e birthday of the creation of the Turkish Republic, in 1998, while making jump the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk to Ankara, the founder of the Turkey modern and laic. The investigation had made it possible to go up the track until him.

In May 2004, after German justice decided on its expulsion towards Turkey which claimed it since years, Metin Kaplan fled. The German police force launched a vast tracking to find it.

Newspapers and TV

The caliphate of Cologne, has to date (July 2004) two newspapers, of the television channel Kakk-TV which emits on Eutelsat and which has a very important audience in Turkey, but also in the countries of Europe where reside of the Turks.

On this chain TV, Metin Kaplan regularly addresses its official safety to Usama Bin Laden.

Finances

The caliphate of Cologne is officially fed by important funds coming from its followers in Germany, but also in Belgium, France, with the Netherlands, in Austria and Suisse.

In April 1998, at the time of a searching in the residence of Metin Kaplan, the police force had seized 2 million deutsche marks out of banknotes and several kilograms of gold.

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