Yahia Abu Zakariyai, Khaled Shawkat, IOL Correspondents

STOCKHOLM, January 14 (IslamOnline) - Norwegian authorities turned down an American request to detain an Iraqi Kurdish leader accused by Washington of having links with Al-Qaeda and of cooperating with the Iraqi regime in hiding weapons of mass destruction.

Mullah Abdullah Krekar, the leader of Ansar Al-Islam (supports of Islam) group returned to the Norwegian capital Monday, January 13, after several weeks of detention in The Netherlands.

Krekar, 46, was arrested by Dutch immigration officials at Amsterdam Schipol airport last September while he was en route to Norway, where he has been living as a political refugee since 1991.

Mullah Krekar is "a free man at this moment", said a Norwegian lawyer who volunteered to defend him.

Dutch authorities justified Krekar’s detention by saying he was wanted in American investigations about Al-Qaeda.

The Islamic activist vehemently denied Washington’s accusations that he had links with Al-Qaeda which is blamed by the U.S. for the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Before Krekar's release, Ansar al-Islam issued a statement, a copy of which was faxed to IslamOnline, asserting that he officially contacted the U.S. Embassy in the Norwegian capital requesting a meeting with American officials.

"Krekar is absolutely convinced that the accusations and published documents against him are false," said the statement.

There are some parties deliberately trying to propagate such unsubstantiated accusations, said Krekar's brother Fateh, currently in Kurdistan, Iraq.

He cited in this respect allegations that 11 members of Ansar Al-Islam had been arrested in Kurdistan and that one of them, Gawad Gamil Naguib, had admitted to having ties with Al-Qaeda.

The statement also repudiated U.S. Attorney General Donald Rumsfeld’s claim that the group had cooperated with the Iraqi regime in hiding chemical weapons.

There has never been any overt or covert contacts between Ansar al-Islam and the Iraqi regime, stressed the statement.

The group welcomes any U.N. or U.S. team to visit the areas under its control and look for these alleged weapons, added the statement.