PREACHER SORRY HE PERSUADED DOZENS IN AUSTRIA TO JOIN ISIS
▶ Sermons that recruited young people to fight in Syria ‘caused a lot of harm,’ he tells court
A notorious hate preacher jailed for 20 years for recruiting dozens of Austrians to fight for ISIS expressed remorse for his sermons yesterday as he gave evidence in a new terrorism trial.
Mirsad Omerovic, whose lectures inspired a wave of young people to leave for the battlefields of Syria, told a court in Vienna that his lectures had caused a lot of harm and he regretted not being able to undo his actions.
Omerovic, who was jailed in 2016, was speaking on the opening day of a trial of group of alleged ISIS sympathisers. They included a Chechen martial arts expert, identified only as Turpal I, who is accused of joining combat units in Syria where he was allegedly involved in killings and beheadings.
The preacher, 39, who also faces charges, told the court that he had persuaded Turpal I to go to Syria but could not say what happened when he got there.
“I made mistakes, I admit it,” he said. “My lectures have caused a lot of harm.”
Turpal I appeared for the first day of the trial despite being released from prison in May because of the time taken to bring the case to court.
He had spent two years in pretrial detention before he was freed. He said he had been working as a tiler before the trial.
He is accused of being part of several militia groups, including a Chechen unit in which he is said to have held a leadership role.
He is accused of ordering residents of a tower block to be shot dead and several women to be held as slaves. He is also suspected of ordering the beheading of opponents with knives. The Vienna resident, who arrived in Austria as a refugee in 2004, denies the charges. He admits travelling to Syria but said he went there to visit his brother-in-law’s grave.
He was sought by Austria on an international arrest warrant after his alleged role came to light. He was captured in Belarus in 2018 and handed over to the authorities in Austria.
Prosecutors said that he was a well-known martial arts champion within the Chechen community and his recruitment was a significant development for ISIS.
He is standing trial with another alleged ISIS fighter and his wife. The hearings in Vienna, which are protected by heavy security, are expected to continue until the end of the month.
Experts have estimated that up to 300 Austrians joined ISIS, making it one of the European countries with the highest per capita share of foreign fighters. Many of them were Austrian Chechens from a large local community.
Austria has also faced domestic terrorism. ISIS-sympathiser Kujtim Fejzulai killed four people and injured more than 20 in November last year before he was shot dead by police.
Fejzulai, 20, carried out his attack after being prevented from travelling to Afghanistan and Syria to join Islamist militants.
In the aftermath of the attack, interior ministry officials were criticised for failing to recognise the danger that Fejzulai posed.
Austria’s parliament yesterday adopted a new anti-terrorism law drawn up after the deadly attack that allows for increased surveillance of suspects.
Judges and rights groups have criticised the law, which introduces a new register of all imams and introduces monitoring with electronic ankle bracelets for terrorists upon their release from prison.