A radical Islamic leader has claimed that the suicide bomber who killed five
Israeli citizens and a Bulgarian bus driver in the city of Burgas in July
was his disciple.

 

Omar Bakri, the founder of the group ‘Al Muhadzhirun’ who currently lives in
Lebanon after leaving Britain following the attacks at the London Underground,
made the comments in an interview
for the Centre for Middle East studies, published in a Bulgarian daily. The
interview was translated into English by
NewEurope online.

 

Bakri said he was certain that the man in the footage released by the Bulgarian interior ministry was indeed Mehdi Ghezali, a Swedish citizen who has previously been a Guantanamo inmate.

 

In July, Bulgarian authorities and their Swedish colleagues refuted the
version of Gezali’s participation in the terrorist attack and stuck to the
version that the perpetrator was Jacque Felipe Martin, aged 25, from the state of Michigan.

 

The Bulgarian government appealed to Interpol to
assist the national authorities in their investigation of the attack, noted
NewEurope online. In August, the authorities in Bulgaria and Interpol
jointly released images of a
suspected accomplice to the terrorist who was believed to be of Middle
Eastern origin.

 

Bakri, however, expressed confidence that Ghezali was indeed the terrorist,
saying in the interview, “When I realized that this
man was considered to be connected with my people, I called the brothers in
Britain to ask who he was. They told me that he was a guy known as Abu Ahmed.
There was also another nickname. This guy really was a disciple of mine, but
just for a while. Then, he left for Afghanistan. His name is Mahdi Ghezali from
Guantanamo.”

 

However, Bakri added, “I'm not talking about the photo of the corpse, but
about the man from the footage who was walking at the airport. For me, this was
Abu Ahmed.”

 

Asked about who was behind the terrorist attack in
Bulgaria, Bakri replied that Al-Qaeda was responsible and claimed that there
were “very important people” with “a lot of power” among those who died in
Burgas. Israel has fingered
Iran and its terrorist proxy Hizbullah as being behind the terror attack in
Burgas.