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TERRORISM

Two years jail for teen who shared Isis videos

A 18-year-old man has been sentenced to two years imprisonment by Vienna’s Criminal Court, for sharing Islamic State group (Isis) propaganda material and belonging to a terrorist organisation.

Two years jail for teen who shared Isis videos
Entrance to Vienna's Josefstadt prison. Photo: Plani/Wikimedia

The teenager, a native of Chechnya, has already served a prison sentence for armed robbery. He became radicalized in prison and began posting videos of Isis beheadings online.

He began serving a 14-month sentence for armed robbery, assault and extortion last summer. Prosecutors said that he came into contact with Islamic extremists both while in juvenile detention in Gerasdorf and in Vienna’s Josefstadt prison.

He told the court that he was first told about Isis by a fellow prisoner in Josefstadt. He said that after his release he found that many among his circle of friends had become increasingly religious. ‘Friends of mine had gone to Syria and died there,” he said.

He added that an uncle and a cousin of his had been in Syria and court transcripts showed that he had kept in close contact with his uncle – promising that they would meet in the near future.

The 18-year-old even created and shared his own propaganda video for Isis – and told friends that he planned to travel to Syria as soon as possible – despite having fled the conflict in Chechnya with his family when he was five years old.

His lawyer Mirsad Musliu told the court that his client was hugely traumatised by having grown up in the Chechen Republic, during the wars between Chechen rebels and the Russian military. “Other children his age were playing in sandpits – he was watching as people were killed,” Musliu said.

To avoid having to travel alone to Syria, the 18-year-old contacted three girls via the messenger services WhatsApp and Telegram, and became engaged to them under Islamic law. He said that he had a desperate need “to belong to something” and that he wanted to impress the girls by telling them he was travelling to a war zone – but that in reality he had never really intended to go to Syria.

When asked if he is aware of who Isis is fighting against in Syria, the accused admitted that he didn’t actually know: ‘I just know that they are fighting for religion.” He will have to serve an extra ten months on his sentence, having been granted an early release after his previous conviction for armed robbery.

TERRORISM

What is the risk of new terror attacks in Austria?

Following the March 22nd attack in Moscow’s Crocus City Hall that left over 140 dead, European governments are evaluating the threat of terror attacks. Is Austria a target for fresh terrorist attacks?

What is the risk of new terror attacks in Austria?

With responsibility for the Moscow attack being taken by the Islamist terror organisation ISIS-K, national intelligence services are reevaluating the threat posed to targets within their borders. 

‘No concrete threat’

Austrian officials have been quick to give their appraisal of the situation. 

“We currently have the Islamist scene under control,” stressed Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, head of the Directorate of State Security & Intelligence (DSN) – the governmental agency responsible for combatting internal threats – in an interview with the Ö1 Morgenjournal radio programme on Tuesday. 

He continued: “The terrorist attacks in Moscow, for example, definitely increase the risk. But at the moment, we do not see any concrete threat of an attack in Austria,”

Other experts and officials have warned that while there are no concrete threats, Austrians should not be complacent. 

‘Situation is still valid’ 

Interior Minister Gerhard Karner announced tighter security at church festivals during the Easter period, in the days after the attack, and stressed that the high terror alert level introduced after the October 7 Hamas attacks was still in place. 

“This increased risk situation is still valid,” noted Karner.

READ MORE: What does Austria’s raised terror alert mean for the public?

Meanwhile, terror researcher Peter Neumann of King’s College London told ORF’s ‘ZiB 2’ news broadcast on Monday that Austria remains a potential target due to its Central Asian migrant population. 

Neumann noted that countries at most risk are those “in which Tajik and Central Asian diasporas exist and where ISIS-K finds it relatively easy to identify and recruit people”. 

He continued, identifying both Austria and Germany as “countries in which the ISPK is particularly active and which are particularly at risk from terrorist attacks”.

New threats

Austria has not been spared from attacks from homegrown terrorists.

On November 2nd 2020, amid Coronavirus lockdowns, Austrian-born Kujtim Fejzulai shot and killed four, injuring twenty-three others during a shooting spree across Vienna. He was ultimately shot dead by police. 

Fejzulai was already under surveillance by federal authorities for his beliefs and had been released from prison on parole less than a year before. 

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