Saturday, December 8, 2018

Jihadist Court Case

This week....a rather unusual court case in Frankfurt concluded....over actions that occurred in 2013 (five years ago).  HR (our local Hessen public TV network told the basis of the story).

So you go back to the early fall of 2013, and this local kid in Frankfurt got some urging from a local Islamic 'leader' to leave Frankfurt....travel to Turkey....cross the border and join up with a jihadist military group.  With some minor boot-camp-like training....the kid got sent into combat and ended up dead in the spring of 2014. 

A long process occurred where questions were asked by the authorities in Frankfurt.  What this led to was a 'network' that had been created with funding (no one says from where) and it went to this local 29-year-old (today) Frankfurt guy.  What this court did was evaluate the actions committed, the victims, and the pain/suffering of the relatives, and this accused guy ended up with a guilty situation (right now, 3 years and 6 months in jail). 

The one obvious factor in this whole saga....is that without the travel money....this kid wouldn't have made the trip. 

A blunt message?  It's hard to say that.  Once this recruitment era started up....you just didn't see much action by the German authorities to hinder or prevent the recruitment or the travel arrangements into Turkey (then onto Syria). 

Will this sentence business be the end, or will the guy appeal?  I suspect that he'll appeal and maybe find some way to carve off half the sentence. 

Some Germans will say this is fair....others will just shake their head because the recruitment should have been identified as a major crime back in 2013. 

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