At the Vienna Regional Court, the trial of five defendants who allegedly worked for the radical Islamist terrorist militia “Islamic State” ended with convictions and acquittals. Two suspected foreign terrorist fighters received 6.5 and 4.5 years in prison, the former “hate preacher” Mirsad O. alias Ebu Tejma, who had already been sentenced to 20 years in prison, was found guilty without penalty and the two wives of the first accused were acquitted.
The judgments based on the verdict of the jury are not final. The jury deliberated for nine hours, the reading of the verdicts alone took two hours. The main defendant, Turpal I, was acquitted of allegations made against him of atrocities in Syria. However, he and the second Syria fighter are guilty of being members of a terrorist organization (Section 278b StGB) and a criminal organization (278a StGB). The former preacher Mirsad O. was sentenced to terrorist offenses (Section 278c StGB) as a determined perpetrator – in some cases it remained an attempt – because he persuaded the two first defendants and one other man to join IS and go to Syria to fight draw. Due to his already final judgment, an additional penalty was waived. In addition, a Syrian fighter – a native of Styria – was excluded from the right to vote.
The events since 2013 have been dealt with in nine days of negotiations. The allegation was that the two Syria fighters should have been recruited by the former Islamic preacher Mirsad O. in order to then travel to the civil war country as soldiers for the IS. The wives were chalked up as a psychological contribution to the crime by accompanying their husbands to Turkey and supporting their actions, knowing their husbands’ plans for Syria. Both made it clear in their interviews that as Muslims they could not oppose their devout husband. The wife of the first defendant has since separated from him.
Murders of numerous women and men
The main defendant, a native Chechen, is said to have traveled with his wife and their daughter to Syria via Turkey at the end of August 2013 and fought for the IS against the Assad regime in the civil war under the name Abu Aische – initially for a short period of time A riot of militia, then until April 2015 in a fighting force made up of Chechens, where he was charged with a leadership role. According to the allegations, the troops evidently distinguished themselves through particular cruelty. According to allegations by the public prosecutor’s office, Turpal I is said to have ordered the shooting of residents of a high-rise building and three women captured as slaves in the northern Syrian city of Hraytan. In Ratyan – a small town north of Aleppo – he had at least seven Shiites’ heads cut off with knives, and in the nearby town of Hayyan he is said to have actively participated in similar killings of men and women in a housing estate. He has now been acquitted of these atrocities committed against him.
He always denied this before the jury. Turpal I. said he was mistaken for having visited his brother-in-law’s grave two or three times in Syria. The Chechen came to Austria as a refugee in 2004 and is said to have been recruited for IS by the radical Islamist “hate preacher” Mirsad O. O., who was represented by Leonhard Kregcjk, is said to have persuaded several young men to go to war for ISIS in Syria, including the Styrian who converted to Islam and a young Chechen who died in fighting in May 2013 .
“Back then I didn’t know what combat operations mean, what war means”
The 32-year-old Styrian converted to Islam at the age of 17 because he fell in love with a Muslim woman. Subsequently, he became radicalized, also spurred on by the sermons and lectures of Mirsad O. In September 2013, he traveled to the Turkish-Syrian border with his wife and their three-month-old son. While the wife and child stayed in Turkey, the man crossed over to Syria, where ISIS fighters awaited him, brought him to a house and fitted him with a Kalashnikov. “At that time I didn’t know what combat operations meant, what war meant,” said the accused who confessed. However, his original willingness to fight for IS against the Assad regime quickly waned when his force was bombed by fighter jets. “I could have been dead too,” he said on the last day of the trial. “From that day on it was clear to me that I wanted to get out as soon as possible.” He never took part in combat operations.
By pretending to want to get a car in Turkey, the then 25-year-old first returned to his wife and child in Turkey and then to Austria in December 2013. “I was just afraid for my life,” admitted the defendant. In Austria, he kept in touch with other European ISIS comrades in Syria and showed them that he wanted to raise more money, start studying and then go back to Syria: “But it was clear to me that I was not who they meant to be have held.” Subsequently, the man went to Saudi Arabia to study there. There he gradually broke away “from this ideology”. The time in Medina contributed to the fact that today I “sit there normally, with a normal attitude”.
Public prosecutor Johannes Winklhofer had also charged Turpal I’s parents with terrorist organization. However, the father died last December, the mother is likely to have gone into hiding – Winklhofer applied for an arrest order and the issue of a European arrest warrant in order to get hold of her.
Turpal I. caused a stir in the run-up to the trial because he had to be released in May, since according to the Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO), detention may not exceed two years if no indictment has been filed and no main hearing has started. This applies even if the person concerned – as in the present case – is suspected of a capital crime that is threatened with a prison sentence of more than five years (Section 178 (1) 2nd case StPO). The 32-year-old remained at large after the verdict was pronounced until the decision became final, said his lawyer Florian Kreiner. The defense lawyer asked for three days to reflect after the verdict.
