Indictment Filed Against Five Suspected Supporters of the Foreign Terrorist Organisation ‘Islamic State’

Year of issue 2023
Date 28.12.2023

On 29 November 2023, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office filed charges against

German national Chahira A.,
Kosovar national Kujtim B.,
German and Moroccan national Siham O.,
German national Anna Y. and
erman national Harun Y.

before the State Security Chamber of the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court.

There are sufficient grounds to suspect each of the accused of several counts of support of a foreign terrorist organisation (section 129 para. 1 no. 1, para. 5 sentence 1, section 129b para. 1 sentence 1, sentence 2 of the German Criminal Code) and violations of the Foreign Trade and Payments Act (section 18 para. 1 no. 1 a) Variant 8 of the Foreign Trade and Payments Act in conjunction with section 2 para. 2 of the Regulation (EC) No. 881/2002.

In essence, the indictment sets out the following facts:

The accused supported the foreign terrorist organisation ‘Islamic State’ between 2020 and 2022 by transferring funds to the organisation via intermediaries. They did so on behalf of two Syria-based ‘Islamic State’ members who published appeals for donations on Telegram. The transferred amounts of money were comprised of numerous individual donations collected by the accused and totalled more than €250,000. The funds were used in Syria to pay for the release of members of the ‘Islamic State’ detained in the camps Al-Hol and Roj or to allow them to live a lifestyle aligned with the organisation’s doctrine inside the camps.

The accused were taken into custody on 31 May 2023 and have been in pre-trial detention ever since (see Press Releases No. 25 and No. 26 of 31 May and 2 June 2023). The proceedings against the other two individuals arrested on 31 May 2023 were referred to the Düsseldorf Public Prosecutor General’s Office given their lower significance.