Austria(Bureau report) A trial against seven defendants who allegedly worked for the terrorist militia “Islamic State” (IS) begins today at the regional court. The main defendant has been at large since early May. The 32-year-old will face the proceedings and appear at the trial, the 32-year-old’s lawyer told the APA: “We are preparing for the trial. The release from liability gives him the opportunity to collect exculpatory evidence. “According to the defense attorney, the 32-year-old admits that he was in Syria, but denies having been involved in terrorist offenses or even killing people. He only wants to have visited the grave site of his brother-in-law who died in Syria. The native Chechen is said to have traveled with his wife and daughter to Syria via Turkey at the end of August 2013 and fought for IS against the Assad regime in the civil war under the name Abu Aische. Initially, he was briefly in a mixed-up militia, then until April 2015 in a fighting force made up of Chechens, where, according to the indictment, he held a leadership role. The 201-page indictment was drawn up by the Graz Public Prosecutor’s Office, which led the investigation. The troops around the Chechens are said to have distinguished themselves through particular cruelty. The 32-year-old 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. In Austria since 2004. The Chechen came to Austria as a refugee in 2004 and was recruited for IS by the radical Islamist “hate preacher” Mirsad O. alias Ebu Tejma. Ebu Tejma is also accused in the proceedings at the Vienna Regional Court: He is said to have induced several young men to go to war for ISIS in Syria, including a Styrian who converted to Islam and a young Chechen who died in fighting in May 2013 came. The 32-year-old tried to come to Syria with his family for the first time in May 2013. In Hungary, however, his wife’s passport was recognized as a forgery, and the three were sent back to Austria. In the following June, the man made it to Syria on his own, where he underwent basic military training and prepared to move his family. At the end of June he flew back to Vienna, two months later he had reached his destination by settling in the province of Aleppo with his wife and daughter. Arrest in Belarus. After 2015 the track of the Chechen got lost. A witness, who had also incriminated Mirsad O., which led to the fact that the preacher in Graz could be legally sentenced to 20 years in prison, then became known that the 32-year-old is said to have committed murders in Syria. The witness was included in a special witness protection program. The Chechen, who at that time was no longer available in Austria, was wanted by an international arrest warrant. The arrest followed in 2018 in Belarus. The Chechen was arrested and handed over to the Austrian judiciary the following spring. On April 24, 2019, the Graz Regional Court sentenced the terror suspect to custody. Release due to the end of the deadline. The 32-year-old has been at large again since May 5th. He was compulsorily released because, according to the Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO), the custody may not exceed two years until the start of the main hearing. This applies even if the person concerned is suspected of a capital crime that is threatened with a prison sentence of more than five years (Section 178 (1) 2nd case of the Code of Criminal Procedure). According to the APA, the man is monitored around the clock by the Vienna State Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Combating Terrorism (LVT). Accordingly, eight officers are assigned to the observation. According to his lawyer, the 32-year-old does not have a valid travel document allowing him to leave the country and he also has to report to the police three times a week. In the process, the parents and the wife of the 32-year-old also have to answer. The trial is set to run until July 27th. For the 32-year-old, if convicted in accordance with the indictment, it is about ten to 20 years or life imprisonment. The trial will take place in Vienna and not in Graz because some of the acts covered by the indictment are said to have taken place in the district of the Higher Regional Court of Vienna.
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