SAUDI ARABIA DENIES ISLAMIC UNION SAID TO FINANCE CZECH MOSQUE EXISTS Czech TV1

SAUDI ARABIA DENIES ISLAMIC UNION SAID TO FINANCE CZECH MOSQUE EXISTS
Czech TV1 - February 13, 2004

(Announcer) A plan to build a mosque in Orlova (in North Moravia in the Czech Republic) is now attracting doubts - some 9m dollars for the construction is supposed to be provided by the Islamic Union based in Saudi Arabia.

However, our reporter Josef Vaculik has discovered that everything indicates that this investor does not exist at all and that an Albanian from Kosovo, Muhamed Gutiqi, who presents himself as the investor's general representative is being prosecuted by the Czech justice over international trade in women.

(Reporter) The mosque in Orlova is supposed to serve Arab clients of the nearby spas of Karvina and Klimkovice. (passage omitted)

The Islamic Foundation, an organisation officially active in the Czech Republic, says that it has no information about the Islamic Union based in Saudi Arabia and that it might not even exist. (passage omitted)

(Announcer) And we have now got an official statement by the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Prague, reacting to our dispatch.

According to it, there is really no Islamic Union in Saudi Arabia and no other organisation based there is preparing to finance the building of a mosque in Orlova.

Source: Czech TV1, Prague, in Czech 1815 gmt 13 Feb 04

LENGTH: 209 words

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