Five Tajiks on trial in Germany for planning Islamic State terror attacks

Five Tajik men went on trial in Germany Wednesday accused of belonging to an ISIS cell that planned jihadist attacks on German soil.

The opening hearing of the trial at the higher regional court in Duesseldorf, which is taking place under high security, was dedicated to the reading of the charge sheet.

The suspects, aged 24 to 33, are accused of playing various roles in an ISIS terror cell including recruitment, fundraising and plotting the murder of an Islam-critical YouTuber based in Neuss in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

A sixth member, Ravsan B., was already sentenced to seven years in January after being prosecuted separately.

“The aim of the cell members, who were in contact with ISIS leaders in Syria and Afghanistan, was to take up the armed struggle against what they saw as ‘infidels’ and to commit attacks in Germany,” the indictment said.

The men had been planning to attack targets including US army bases in Germany, prosecutors said on arresting four of them in April 2020.

The fifth – Komron B. – was transferred from Albania before being arrested in August 2020.

The group allegedly held training sessions, including paintball games, attended by members of the Islamist scene who had contact with the Macedonian-Austrian national who gunned down four people in Vienna last November.

They also ordered bomb parts online and stocked up on firearms and ammunition, according to prosecutors.

Ravsan B. and another member of the group are further accused of accepting a $40,000 contract to assassinate a businessman in Albania, but the plan failed at the last minute.

ISIS-linked jihadists have committed several violent attacks in Germany in recent years, with the worst being a ramming attack at a Berlin Christmas market in December 2016 that killed 12.

Source: Kurdistan 24