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Germany court sentences Daesh recruiter

February 24, 2021 at 2:30 pm

A Daesh sign at the entrance of the city of Al-Qaim, in Iraq’s western Anbar province near the Syrian border, seen on November 3, 2017 [AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images]

A German court today sentenced an Iraqi preacher to more than ten years in prison after finding him guilty of taking part in planning an attack in Germany and collecting funds and fighters for the Islamic State militant group, Reuters reported.

Prosecutors had accused the 40-year-old preacher, identified as Ahmad Abdulaziz Abdullah A. in court documents, of recruiting at least seven individuals who ended up travelling to the Middle East where they fought alongside Daesh.

Two of the men he recruited are believed to have killed more than 150 Iraqi soldiers in suicide bombings.

The Higher Regional Court in the northern city of Celle sentenced him to ten-and-a-half years in prison. Three members of the Islamist network he had set up were handed prison terms ranging from four to eight years.

The main suspect, known by the nickname Abu Walaa and the three others were arrested in November 2016 in raids in the states of Lower Saxony and North-Rhine Westphalia.

Abu Walaa sat quietly on the stand in court wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt, a white T-Shirt and a face mask that covered parts of this long black beard as he waited for the verdict and sentencing behind a glass cubicle.

The defendants had chosen to remain silent during the trial and did not enter pleas.

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