Swiss court jails Islamic group official for ‘jihadist’ film

It’s a suspended sentence so don’t get too excited. From the Swiss edition of The Local

A Swiss court on Friday slapped a 20-month suspended sentence on an official of a prominent Islamic group for alleged production and distribution of jihadist propaganda but acquitted its leader.

The three Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (ICCS) suspects included the group’s head Nicolas Blancho (above) and spokesman Qaasim Illi, who were both acquitted. But German national Naim Cherni, the head of the council’s “culture production department”, was sentenced. He had  travelled to Syria in 2015 and made films there with a known Islamist leader. Abdallah Al-Muhaysini of the jihad umbrella organisation Jaysh al-Fath (“Army of Conquest”). 

The films, which prosecutors say amounted to jihadist propaganda, were “promoted via social media and at a public event” by Blancho, Illi and Cherni, they had said. Blancho, who converted to Islam at age 16, has in the past denied being tied to extremism but has staked out positions considered more radical than other Muslim leaders in Switzerland. 

In an email to AFP earlier, Illi said the attorney general was “pushed by an Islamophobic social wave (and) is trying to defame Switzerland’s largest Islamic grassroots organisation by its fabricated claim.” He said the ICCS had nearly 4,000 members, representing about one percent of Muslims in Switzerland.