DUESSELDORF, Germany Turkish Islamic activist Metin Kaplan, known as the "caliph of Cologne," was sentenced here Wednesday to four years in prison for calling for the death of a rival. Kaplan, 48, who calls himself a caliph, or religious leader, was charged with issuing religious decrees, or Fatwas, in 1996 calling for the murder of a rival, Halil Ibrahim Sofu.
But Kaplan said he had only been reading excerpts from the Qoran.
Sofu, a Turkish doctor who also called himself a caliph, was murdered by three assailants in Berlin in 1997 but the prosecutor said this was not necessarily linked to Kaplan's call.
Kaplan had been charged by a federal court in September last year with belonging to an organization, publicly inciting criminal acts and plotting. Kaplan has since May 1995 been head of the Cologne-based organization Hilafet Devleti. He is suspected of having in May 1998 called for a holy war, or jihad, to topple the regime in Ankara and replace it with a caliphate. Kaplan was arrested March 25, 1999 on a federal warrant. His arrest led to violent demonstrations in Cologne.