Representatives of Argentina’s Islamic community yesterday protested the arrest of two brothers, detained on the grounds of alleged links to the terrorist wing of the Hezbollah movement, in the build-up to the G20 Leaders Summit at the end of this month.
The Security Ministry reported that officers had found several firearms, four knives and a Hezbollah banner in a Floresta house of the brothers Damián and Kevin Abraham Salomon (aged 23 and 25). But their parents said that the weapons were obsolete souvenirs inherited from a greatgrandfather who was a keen hunter.
The investigation dates back to an anonymous tip to the DAIA Jewish community organisation last January 31 but the two brothers were not arrested until last Tuesday. Yesterday police were also hunting the cousin of the detained men after raiding his house.
Adalberto Assad, president of the Confederation of Argentine- Árab Organisations, criticised the police actions, saying they had suffered “two raids in three days.” He branded the development “a persecution of the Islamic community,” most of which had been around a century in Argentina and had no connection with terrorism.
The community leader said that “we must separate Islam from terrorism, they have nothing to do [with it],” he said. “We are working-class people of peace.”
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