In October 2017 the Belgian minister of asylum and migration Theo Francken revoked the residence permit of the Egyptian-trained imam of the mosque, Abdelhadi Sewif. Francken cited his salafist ideology, his conservative stance and the imam being a danger to Belgian society and national security as reasons for the revocation. Sewif denied any connection with extremism and appealed to the country’s highest migration authority, but Belgium’s deputy premier, Jan Jambon, has shot down his chance of a successful appeal. A public commission investigating the 2016 Brussels bombings found that 9 participants of courses at the mosque had joined the ranks of foreign fighters of radical groups in the Middle East. Due to these findings, the commission recommended in October 2017 that Saudi control of the mosque be annulled. The commission also stated that the salafi and wahhabist doctrine of the mosque were antithetical to a liberal Islam compatible with European society.