Author of two reference books (“Muslim Brotherhood, the inner circle” and “The neo-Muslim Brotherhood in the West”), Lorenzo Vidino is one of the most prominent specialists on the Islamist Brotherhood in Europe. In this interview, he explains how the Muslim Brotherhood’s hidden real estate investments bring in tens of millions of euros every year.
The author of “Why I left the Muslim Brotherhood” was the first in 2016 to publish an investigation into the real estate assets of Imam Hassan Iquioussen and his family. For him, the Iquioussen case is in fact the tree that hides the forest: for decades, the Muslim Brotherhood has been discreetly accumulating buildings, houses, commercial premises, flats and land. The objective is to build up a “real estate war chest” that would allow them to finance themselves, so as not to depend on money from the Gulf countries.
Between the time he slipped away from the French police who came to arrest him at his home in Lourches on August 30, and his arrest by the Belgian police near Mons on September 30, the case of the Muslim brother preacher, Hassan Iquioussen, has been extensively commented on.
His profile as a self-proclaimed imam with controversial remarks; his career as a “city preacher” in the shadow of “Muslims of France” (Ex-UOIF), the French branch of the Muslim Brotherhood; his figurative career as an Islamo-youtubeur, whose video-sermons count more than 34 million views; were examined from every angle.
