The leader was initially Cemalettin Kaplan, who was nicknamed "Khomeini of Cologne" by the German public. In Turkish media he was referred to as the "Dark Voice" (). At an event in honor of Kaplan in 1993, the German convert to Islam Andreas Abu Bakr Rieger publicly "regretted" in front of hundreds of listeners that the Germans had not completely destroyed the Jews: "Like the Turks, we Germans have often had a good cause in history fought, although I have to admit that my grandfathers weren't thorough with our main enemy."