Austria sentences Daesh recruiter to 20-year jail term

A court in Austria has sentenced an Austrian national to 20 years in prison for recruiting militants for the Takfiri terrorist group of Daesh.

The court, in the southern Austrian city of Graz, on Wednesday found Ebu Tejma guilty of recruiting for Daesh and of inciting acts of terror at the end of a trial that had been running since February.

According to prosecutors, the 34-year-old “brainwashed” dozens of people aged between 14 and 30, and recruited a number of them to fight for Daesh in Syria.

Tejma had fled from Bosnia to Vienna following the break-up of Yugoslavia and “preached” in various Austrian and southern German cities, becoming a “key figure” in pushing Daesh propaganda, the prosecution said.

Tejma, whose real name is Mirsad Omerovic, was arrested in 2014 after the Austrian government launched a crackdown on terror cells propagating Takfiri ideologies in the country.

The Ministry of Interior in Austria says some 250 people are suspected of Daesh-linked activities in the country, with the majority of them hailing from Chechnya or Bosnia.

The ministry said at least 40 people who had traveled from Austria to conflict zones in the Middle East have been killed while fighting alongside the Takfiri terrorist group.

In February, the European Union (EU)’s criminal intelligence agency, Europol, said up to 5,000 trained members of Daesh were at large in Europe. Some 30,000 militants from over 100 countries have reportedly traveled to Syria and Iraq since 2011 to join the ranks of Takfiri terrorist groups.

Back in November last year, Daesh launched a series of attacks in the French capital of Paris, killing a total of 130 people. Investigations into the incident revealed that the perpetrators were mostly Belgium-based.

In March, two bomb attacks at the Belgian capital of Brussels killed at least 14 people and left nearly 100 people wounded, while a separate bombing in a metro station killed around 20 people and injured about 100 others.

Daesh terrorists now control parts of Syria and its eastern neighbor, Iraq.

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