Melbourne: MyCentre Leader Silent in Video on Flydubai Allegations

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents Melbourne: MyCentre Leader Silent in Video on Flydubai Allegations.

While authorities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are examining connections between an Islamic center in Melbourne and a suspected Flydubai hijacker, the center's leader has published a video — and addresses precisely nothing of what he is accused of. Samir Mohtadi, head of MyCentre in Melbourne, posted footage on Facebook in which he cites Islamic texts praising silence as a virtue.

The Guardian reports, citing the video. According to the report, Mohtadi does not directly address the allegations from the Gulf emirates linking his mosque association to a 29-year-old suspect. Instead, he turns to religious sources that extol silence, the newspaper reports.

The background is an ongoing case involving a man who, according to the UAE judiciary, is alleged to have hijacked a Flydubai flight. What concrete evidence investigators have for the claimed connection to MyCentre is not set out in the available report.

What is the UAE attorney general saying?

Over the weekend, Dr. Hamad Saif al-Shamsi, the UAE's attorney general, publicly disclosed information about the case. Investigators had traced the ideological and professional development of the 29-year-old suspect, al-Shamsi told the Guardian. The findings indicated that his drift toward extremism and terrorism began while he was studying at RMIT University in Melbourne in 2017.

drift towards extremism and terrorism

Who is Samir Mohtadi?

Mohtadi heads MyCentre in Melbourne and, according to the Guardian, also goes by the name Abu Hamza. He regularly publishes videos on social media. The current silence-themed video lands right in the middle of a phase in which his center is facing the allegations from the UAE — and contains no discernible statement on those allegations.

What remains open

The Guardian article sketches the allegations but leaves central questions unanswered: exactly how UAE authorities establish the connection between the suspect and MyCentre, what the 29-year-old's name is, and when precisely the alleged Flydubai incident is said to have taken place — the available report provides no concrete details on any of these points. For now, the UAE attorney general's account stands; independent corroboration of the allegations is not evident from the article.