2023-10-17 17:10:00
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The Federal Criminal Court sentenced the Winterthur IS supporter to 32 months in prison. This is how he behaved in court.
How did the accused appear?
There is a massive body underneath the black long-sleeved shirt. He says he trains on public sports fields. A thick black beard, the hair on the back of his neck shaved, his legs in blue jeans down to the ankles. Flood pants for fashion reasons or a confession as a Salafist? That remains open. Like so many things. Because the now 25-year-old answers most questions with: “I won’t say anything regarding it.” That is his right. When he spoke out, it was usually with instructions from the court that might be summarized as follows: You don’t understand anything regarding Islam the way I live it.
The verdict: 32 months imprisonment
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The young Swiss man from a family of Kosovar immigrants was sentenced today in the first instance. The Federal Criminal Court sentenced the 25-year-old to a partial prison sentence of 32 months for violating the IS law, making images of violence accessible and fraud. He has to serve half of that.
The federal prosecutor’s office demanded a prison sentence of 55 months, while the defense demanded a conditional prison sentence of 21 months and a conditional fine.
In addition to the prison sentence, the court imposed a conditional fine of 100 daily rates of 100 francs. The probationary period lasts five years.
During this time, the Swiss must complete a de-radicalization program. The 266 days in pre-trial detention will be counted towards the sentence and a further 56 days for the substitute measures imposed.
Is he still an IS supporter?
The court president asked him several times regarding his current attitude. Answer: See above. The defense attorney accused the court of engaging in mental criminal law. That doesn’t exist in Switzerland. You can think and say almost anything. Only: according to the indictment, the man continued to support IS, spread propaganda, recruited others and collected donations even following a previous conviction for a trip to Syria. Therefore the repeated question: how does he see the IS ideology today? Answer: See above. The court also asked him regarding yesterday’s attack in Brussels. On the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel. A clear distancing? None. He is once morest all atrocities once morest innocent people, no matter who commits them.
How does the accused justify himself?
The defense attorney emphasized several times that he was only 20 and 21 years old at the time of the alleged crimes. Many of the allegations cannot be denied; they are supported by audio recordings from surveillance of clandestine meetings of the IS support scene around Winterthur at the time. Why all this? How do young adults come to want to support IS? The answer to this too: see above. The accused only let one thing be known: What he regrets is that he got into “problems”, i.e. the arrest, almost nine months in custody, the court case. Real remorse for the actions sounds different.
What was the man’s role?
Some described him as Emir, leader in the Winterthur Islamist scene around 2018 to 2019. The defender vehemently contradicted this, saying there were other leading figures. According to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, the investigations revealed a different picture: that of a man who made the spread of IS ideology his life’s purpose. According to the prosecution, the decisive factors were his authority as a returnee from Syria, his charisma, his knowledge of human nature. He knows who he has to say something to. In the middle of the courtroom, where the defendant looks up at the judges, awaiting the next question, like a boxer who knows exactly how he will react (see above), it is difficult to imagine at first. But only until he starts speaking.
What is the significance of the case?
Almost ten years ago, when the defendant’s career began in Islamist and jihadist circles, when the then “ISIS” was slowly but surely recognized as a danger in the West, there was often talk of overnight radicalization, of online radicalization . We now know that propaganda videos, chats and posts are accelerant – but in most cases radicalization happens from person to person.
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