You're reading: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Donated mosque fuels adoration of Chechen strongman in Israel

Salim Jabber recently renovated his house, and he says he feels bad about hanging the portrait of Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov in a corner of the living room: it isn’t prominent enough."He's a magical guy," Jabber, who spent 25 years as mayor of Abu Ghosh before stepping down in 2013, says of Russian President Vladimir Putin's man in Chechnya. So during our interview, he moves a bookcase to the right to make the portrait more conspicuous.

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