Ahmed Akkari

Ahmed Akkari (born 1978 in Lebanon) (أحمد عكاري) is a Danish political activist who became known for his involvement in the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. Widely called an "Imam" in the media, he himself denied being one. He was a co-author of the Akkari-Laban dossier, which played a major role in the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy by bringing the issue to the attention of influential decision-makers in the Middle East. In 2013 he distanced himself from his former position and in June 2020 became one of the founders of the political party New Centre-Left. Ahmed Akkari was born in Lebanon in 1978. In 1985 the Akkaris family came to Denmark, where they obtained asylum, but returned to Lebanon in 1990. Upon their return to Denmark a year later they found they did not qualify as refugees again, because the Lebanese Civil War was over. With the support of some Danish local media, which featured young Ahmed as a model immigrant, they were granted a humanitarian residency permit in 1994. Ahmed Akkari subsequently went to high school and trained as a teacher in Århus. He became a Danish citizen in 2005 which made him eligible to be evacuated from Lebanon again in 2006. In 2001 Ahmed Akkari was sentenced to 40 days in prison for beating an 11-year-old schoolboy on 3 November 2000 because the boy had allegedly been bullying Akkari's little sister. The sentence was suspended because Akkari was a first-time offender. Akkari, who was studying to be a teacher at the time, was present that day at Muslim private school Lykkeskolen in Aarhus where he was working as an apprentice teacher. According to sources at the school quoted in Ekstra-Bladet, his 11-year-old sister was playing with a boy from her class and the boy accidentally pulled her headscarf off. Akkari sought out the boy, pulled his ear drawing blood, and threw him to the ground kicking him several times. During the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy Akkari acted as a spokesman of the Danish-based European Committee for Prophet Honouring and spokesman of the Islamisk Trossamfund (Islamic Society in Denmark).