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Suspected jihadists hauled up before court

Four Iraqi nationals accused of trying to plant an Islamic State (IS) cell in Switzerland go on trial at the criminal court in Bellinzona on Monday.

Suspected jihadists hauled up before court
Photo: vitra.com

Two of the four are additionally suspected of planning terrorist attacks.

Three of the men were arrested in Switzerland and have been jailed since spring 2014, the 24 heures newspaper reported online.

The man named as the principal suspect, a paraplegic who relies on a wheelchair to get around, arrived in Switzerland in 2012 and obtained asylum.

The 30-year-old is thought to have joined a terrorist organization in Iraq as early as 2004, the paper said.

Hospitalized in Schaffhausen in the north east of the country before being moved to a centre for paraplegics in the canton of Aargau, he is said to have maintained close links with this organization and to have planned terrorist attacks.

Despite operations and rehabilitation, the Iraqi was active on social media platforms and posted videos supporting sharia law and terrorism, according to the prosecution.

The indictment does not say where the group planned to stage its attacks, but says intercepted conversations made it clear they were to be carried out in the name of IS.

The investigation and arrests were triggered by intelligence from the United States that and Islamic State cell planned an attack on Swiss soil.

In July last year a fourth suspect was detained on suspicion of travelling to Syria to deliver communications devices to IS. 

He is also accused of deleting evidence of his links with IS on Facebook.

Last November the Swiss Attorney General’s Office said active criminal proceedings were underway against 33 individuals over suspected ties to extremist Islamist groups.

The trial is expected to last all week.

 

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CRIME

Hoax bomb threats against French airports ‘traced to Swiss email’

Repeated bomb threats against dozens of French airports which led to evacuations and flight cancellations have been 'traced to an email address in Switzerland', according to French authorities.

Hoax bomb threats against French airports 'traced to Swiss email'

More than 70 bomb threats have been made against French airports in the past week, leading to evacuations at dozens of airports and at least 130 flights cancelled.

Most of the alerts were triggered by emails warning of a bomb in the airport – more than 70 such emails have been received by airports around the country such as Toulouse, Bordeaux, Paris Beauvais, Marseille and dozens of smaller airports – including Basel-Mulhouse on the Franco-Swiss border. 

On Sunday French Transport Minister Clément Beaune said that “almost all of the threats have been traced to the same email address, situated in Switzerland”.

He added: “Since Wednesday, it is almost always the same email address that is used, located outside the European Union, in Switzerland”.

He called on hosting sites to help the French authorities, saying: “Everyone has a responsibility, including the platforms and social networks, not to support this kind of attack and to cooperate as quickly as possible with the French civil aviation authorities and our justice system.”

In France, the maximum penalty for making a hoax bomb threat is two years in jail and a €30,000 fine.

As well as airport evacuations and flight disruption, French tourist sites have also been hit with bomb hoaxes – the Palace of Versailles has been evacuated seven times in the past week.

It comes in the context of a tense situation in France as the country raised its terror alert to maximum after an apparent Islamist attack on Friday, October 13th in which a teacher was killed and two others wounded.

Security at large events such as the Rugby World Cup matches has been stepped up. 

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