Court sentences 4 Turks working for ISIS in Austria to jail
Austria's Graz court recently sentenced an
imam and three men to jail for leading a religious group that recruited young
people for Islamic State.
The court sentenced the imam to seven years in
prison. The other three men were sentenced to six, five and five months'
imprisonment, respectively, for suspended links to ISIS. Two other defendants
were acquitted.
The defendants, born in Turkey, participated
in the activities of this religious group founded by the 47-year-old imam. The
latter denied that he had urged young people to radicalize and recruit them for
ISIS, while the other defendants claimed innocence.
Convicted persons have the opportunity to
appeal
As in other European countries, some young
people, including minors and women, left Austria and went to Syria and Iraq to
join ISIS.
In 2016, a Muslim preacher known as Abutayma,
who was a member of a jihadist propaganda network in Austria, was sentenced to
20 years in prison for brainwashing about 10 people between the ages of 14 and
30.
