Arab-Israeli pharmacist outed as ISIS terrorist

A young customer had noticed the man wearing a ring bearing the Muslim terror group’s symbol.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A Petah Tikva pharmacist was arrested Monday on suspicion of supporting the Islamic State in Syria (ISIS) terror organization after a vigilant customer saw him wearing a ring with the group’s symbol.

The young man had come in the evening to the pharmacy, located in one of the city’s malls, to get some medicine, and saw the ring as he handed the man the prescription.

He managed to take a picture of the man’s hand with the ring and as soon as he left the pharmacy he called the police hotline and reported the incident.

Upon receiving the report, the police told Maariv, officers “arrived at the scene and detained the suspect.”

The paper quoted “officials exposed to the details” of the case as saying that “Either this is a very serious case in which a supporter of the terrorist organization was walking around under the noses of the residents, or it is an insensitive pharmacist who these days allows himself to come [to work] with a ring with the terrorist organization’s symbol prominently displayed.”

“We have hostages whose families are from Petah Tikva and [even] from the neighborhood in question,” they continued. “We have soldiers who were murdered and those who fell in battle, and wearing such a ring is an event that requires an investigation.”

The authorities are asking the court Tuesday to extend the suspect’s remand in custody so that their investigation can proceed effectively.

The man is a resident of eastern Jerusalem, where police last month arrested a 16-year-old on suspicion of trying to recruit students in his high school to become members of ISIS in order to carry out terror attacks.

The police investigation found that the teen had spread the extremist Muslims’ ideology and often glorified the group’s terrorist acts on social media.

His classmates told the authorities that he had expressed a desire to carry out a car bomb attack himself, and threatened them that if they did not join ISIS, its men would kill them one day.

Among the ISIS-related contents on the physics and electronics major’s phone, the police discovered a video on how to make bombs and commit sabotage, formulas for preparing explosives, and Islamic religious rulings favoring suicide attacks and the murder of innocents.

After he was questioned, a prosecutor’s statement was filed against him in preparation for an indictment.