Germany sentences five Tajiks to jail over ISIS plots

From AFP via Alarabiya News and The National News (UEA and the Gulf)  English editions. This happened yesterday and so far the only interest shown by English language publication (all from AFP) is in the Arab, Pakistan and Nigerian press. Photograph from the website of German TV channel Tagesschau 

A German court on Tuesday convicted five Tajik men for their membership of an ISIS cell that planned terrorist attacks in Germany and abroad.

The men, aged 25 to 34, were given jail terms of between three years and eight months to nine-and-a-half years, a court in Duesseldorf said.

It is believed the five men were in the same social circle as the Tajik-born perpetrator behind the Stockholm lorry attack of April 2017, and the Macedonian-Austrian national who shot down four people in Vienna in November 2020.

Sunatullokh K., 26, was handed the longest sentence for planning to shoot dead a YouTuber critical of Islam, who is based in Neuss, western Germany. The assault was foiled by investigators, said the court.

Using Google translate and school German Tagesschau said that the You tube channel was run by a convert to Chrostianity and intended to encourage other ex-Muslims.  The group received instructions from Afghanistan to “set an example” and “kill the unclean bastard”. They were expected to show his body for a propaganda video

Farhodshoh K, 33, received eight and a half years for plotting a contract murder in Albania. The court said the killing was not carried out only because the perpetrators had “doubts about the identity of the target” during surveillance.

The other three men, 34-year-old Muhammadali G., 29-year-old Azizjon B. and Komron B., 25, were convicted for their participation in a terrorist organization. “Driven by their radical Islam conviction,” they had sought to carry out attacks for ISIS, said the court.

From 2019, the men were in contact with a leading ISIS member in Afghanistan who provided them with radical ideology.