RUDIGER TAKES LEGAL ACTION AGAINST FORMER BILD EDITOR OVER TERRORIST LINK

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Antonio Rudiger and the German Football Association (DFB) are taking legal action after the Germany star was linked to a terrorist organisation.

Earlier this month, Rudiger, a devout Muslim, posted a photo on Instagram of himself in a white robe on a prayer mat.

Pointing the index finger of his right hand towards the sky. With a greeting for Ramadan: ‘May the Almighty accept our fasting and prayers.’

On Sunday, former BILD editor Julian Reichelt posted on X: ‘For everyone who doesn’t want to recognize Antonio Rüdiger’s Islamist greeting as an Islamist greeting: the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution calls this gesture the ‘IS finger’ and sees the index finger as a clear sign of Islamism.’

Now Rudiger has filed a criminal complaint with the Berlin public prosecutor’s office, and the DFB has also reported the case to the Central Office for Combating Internet Crime (ZIT) of the Frankfurt/Main Public Prosecutor’s Office.

The Real Madrid star feels vilified and slandered for an Instagram photo at the beginning of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan.

When asked, Rudiger said he did not want to comment on Monday evening.

Germany face the Netherlands in a friendly in Frankfurt on Tuesday night.

On Monday, Rudiger issued a criminal complaint against Reichelt to the Berlin public prosecutor’s office, ‘because of insult or slander, inflammatory insult and sedition,’ as the complaint states.

The DFB also filed a complaint and reported the Reichelt tweet to the public prosecutor’s office as ‘hate speech’. BILD also received mail from Rudiger’s lawyers.

In a letter to BILD editor-in-chief Marion Horn, they ‘warn’ against ‘inflammatory statements to the detriment of our client’.

Reichelt issued a response on X on Monday night where he doubled down on his remarks on Rudiger’s gesture.

He wrote: ‘This gesture has been completely co-opted by terrorists over the last two decades. It has undisputedly become the greeting of ISIS and Islamist murderers all over the world, of people who also murdered in Berlin and bring disaster and immeasurable suffering to the world.

‘Anyone who poses like this in public is consciously showing the greeting of fanatics and not an innocent, spiritual gesture. It is a normalization of a terrible ideology that has already taken over far too much space in this country.

‘Also and especially because it’s about a popular national player, you shouldn’t allow yourself to be intimidated. It is important to point out that this political ideology goes against everything that our values are.

‘The raised index finger of Islamism, with which terrorists around the world celebrate their murders, does not belong to Germany. I will never let anyone stop me from saying that.’

Rudiger is currently with the German national team as they prepare to face the Netherlands on Tuesday night.