27 Feb 2021
A German court has sentenced 37-year-old Abu Walaa to ten and a half years in prison for his role in trying to radicalise young people and recruit them for the Islamic State terrorist group.
Abu Walaa, whose real name is Ahmad Abdulaziz Abdullah A., was originally arrested alongside four other Islamic radicals in 2016 and had come to Germany as an asylum seeker in 2000 after fleeing his native Iraq along with members of his family.
The conviction comes after a nearly four-year trial that began in 2017 but despite the conviction, the lawyer for Walaa has maintained that prosecutors were not able to prove their case fully, Deutsche Welle reports.
German ‘IS leader’ faces verdict
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BERLIN, Feb 24, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – A German court will hand down Wednesday its ruling in a case against Abu Walaa, a notorious Iraqi preacher believed to be the Islamic State jihadist group’s de facto leader in Germany.
Ahmad Abdulaziz Abdullah Abdullah, better known as Abu Walaa, is accused of being “IS’ representative in Germany” and directing a jihadist network which radicalised young people in Europe and helped them travel to Iraq and Syria.
The Iraqi preacher, 37, is in the dock with three other men in a costly and high-security trial that began in 2017 in the northern German town of Celle.
A German court sentenced 37-year-old Iraqi Abu Walaa on Wednesday
He was accused of leading jihadist network radicalising young people in Europe
Walaa would also help young people travel to Iraq and Syria, home to ISIS
He was found guilty on Wednesday of belonging to a foreign terrorist organisation, helping to plan subversive violent acts and financing terrorism
Three co-defendants were also handed sentences, from four to eight years
The network s recruits included a pair of German twin brothers who committed a bloody suicide attack in Iraq in 2015
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