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CRIME

German man jailed over IS ties but cleared of skating rink attack plot

A Stuttgart court on Wednesday sentenced a German man to prison for his involvement with the Islamic State jihadist group, but cleared him of plotting to attack a skating rink.

German man jailed over IS ties but cleared of skating rink attack plot
Photo: DPA

Dasbar W. was arrested in December 2017 for allegedly planning to drive into crowds at an ice rink in Karlsruhe.

The court found insufficient proof to convict him for the alleged plot, but handed Dasbar W. five and a half years in jail for his links with the IS group.

Born in Germany, Dasbar W. moved with his parents to their home country of Iraq in 2006.

He returned to Germany in 2014 and a year later made contact in online chat groups with other IS sympathisers.

He travelled back to Iraq in June 2015 and began acting as a middleman between a high-ranking IS member and a prominent imam in Erbil.

Prosecutors said he returned to Germany after receiving an order from the IS contact to carry out an attack — but he failed to execute the task as two French students sharing an apartment with him warned the police.

The defendant then went back again to Erbil and spied on the prime minister's office as a potential target of attack.

He was caught and jailed for two months in Iraq.

Several months after his release, he returned once more to Germany in July
2017.

Dasbar W.'s arrest in December 2017 came a year after a Christmas market attack in Berlin that killed 12 people.

Rejected asylum seeker Anis Amri, a Tunisian, ploughed a truck into the market on December 19, 2016 before being shot dead while on the run days later in Italy.

READ ALSO: Berlin remembers victims of Christmas market terror attack three years on

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POLITICS

Germany raids properties in bribery probe aimed at AfD politician

German officials said on Thursday they had raided properties as part of a bribery probe into an MP, who media say is a far-right AfD lawmaker accused of spreading Russian propaganda.

Germany raids properties in bribery probe aimed at AfD politician

The investigation targets Petr Bystron, the number-two candidate for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in next month’s European Parliament elections, Der Spiegel news outlet reported.

Police, and prosecutors in Munich, confirmed on Thursday they were conducting “a preliminary investigation against a member of the German Bundestag on the initial suspicion of bribery of elected officials and money laundering”, without giving a name.

Properties in Berlin, the southern state of Bavaria and the Spanish island of Mallorca were searched and evidence seized, they said in a statement.

About 70 police officers and 11 prosecutors were involved in the searches.

Last month, Bystron denied media reports that he was paid to spread pro-Russian views on a Moscow-financed news website, just one of several scandals that the extreme-right anti-immigration AfD is battling.

READ ALSO: How spying scandal has rocked troubled German far-right party

Bystron’s offices in the German parliament, the Bundestag, were searched after lawmakers voted to waive the immunity usually granted to MPs, his party said.

The allegations against Bystron surfaced in March when the Czech government revealed it had bust a Moscow-financed network that was using the Prague-based Voice of Europe news site to spread Russian propaganda across Europe.

Did AfD politicians receive Russian money?

Czech daily Denik N said some European politicians cooperating with the news site were paid from Russian funds, in some cases to fund their European Parliament election campaigns.

It singled out the AfD as being involved.

Denik N and Der Spiegel named Bystron and Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s top candidate for the European elections, as suspects in the case.

After the allegations emerged, Bystron said that he had “not accepted any money to advocate pro-Russian positions”.

Krah has denied receiving money for being interviewed by the site.

On Wednesday, the European Union agreed to impose a broadcast ban on the Voice of Europe, diplomats said.

The AfD’s popularity surged last year, when it capitalised on discontent in Germany at rising immigration and a weak economy, but it has dropped back in the face of recent scandals.

As well as the Russian propaganda allegations, the party has faced a Chinese spying controversy and accusations that it discussed the idea of mass deportations with extremists, prompting a wave of protests across Germany.

READ ALSO: Germany, Czech Republic accuse Russia of cyberattacks

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