Austria: Jihadist taxi driver sentenced to ten years

The court in the Austrian city of Graz heard that the 23-year-old man, Sevkret G., had grown up in Austria to Turkish parents but the despite his western upbringing, he had still been persuaded to fight in the jihad. After travelling to Egypt in 2012, he then went on to Syria where he was a fighter for the Islamic State (ISIS). The court heard however that he was badly injured and in order to get treatment he had returned back to Austria in March 2013.

On his return, he had been given hero status and travelled to various Islamic organisations in the country, where was praised for his bravery and boasted that he even still had shrapnel embedded in his body.

He had also been working on persuading his younger brother Omer, aged 17, to travel to Syria and the pair arranged tickets to Turkey in November 2014 from where they planned to head across to Syria. However they were caught before they could leave after being identified by the Austrian secret service.