Muhannad Z. (50) preferred not to stand trial on the terror charges brought by the public prosecutor’s office in the Graz Regional Criminal Court. When the Higher Regional Court released him from custody, he took the opportunity to flee back to Syria, his country of origin, which he had left ten years ago – allegedly due to political persecution. At least he was granted asylum on this grounds in 2016. But now he seems to feel safer in Syria than in Austria.
Muhannad Z. is back on his Facebook page after a break of two and a half years. He has been eagerly posting videos since the end of January, for example from the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.
In his most recent appearance on the 5th of February, he lets his followers know while sitting in a car: Insulting Allah must be criminalised at all costs, Syria needs a constitutional amendment. He had already spoken about this in a Russian-speaking mosque.
Because society is not guided by Sharia law and such laws are lacking, ‘Bilad al-Sham’ is doing so badly. Bilad al-Sham was the name of Syria when it was a province of the caliphate.
The suspected terrorist leader’s jihadist career began twelve years ago. According to the indictment, he fought from 2013 to 2014 as commander of the Lion Brigade in Al-Mayadin, a city in eastern Syria that became a retreat area for the Islamic State terrorist militia during the war. The Lion Brigade maintained close ties to the Islamic State, reports German Islam and terrorism expert Guido Steinberg. Muhannad later joined the terrorist organisation al-Nusra. For such radical Islamist fighters, the war in Syria is ‘part of a larger conflict that does not end with the fall of Assad’, says Steinberg.
However, Muhannad Z. is said to have never fought with a weapon, his defence lawyer in Graz later explained. ‘I can’t remember firing a weapon,’ the accused claimed evasively in court.
Muhannad arrived in Graz with the wave of refugees in 2015. As far as we know at present, he preached in two mosques here shortly afterwards, namely in the Syrian youth organisation and in a radical Chechen mosque. (Perhaps this was the Russian-speaking mosque he spoke about in his latest video?)
Muhannad Z. also set up an Islamic parallel justice system in his flat: He acted as a Sharia judge, dispensing Islamic law in disputes.
Since then, Muhannad’s stay in Austria has cost taxpayers dearly. The alleged terrorist was followed by his wife and seven children from Syria. It is estimated that the family of eight has since received around 250,000 euros in social benefits.
At the same time, he traded in halal chicken meat, i.e. ‘fresh meat – 100% slaughtered according to the Islamic method’, as stated on the company’s Facebook page. While 90 per cent of chickens in Europe are slaughtered ‘with electric shocks and machines’, the situation is completely different with Alhelal chickens, according to a Facebook post: the chickens are slaughtered ‘in accordance with Islam’, ‘with human labour and without electric shocks’.
A video is shown in which chickens that are still alive are beheaded. ‘The chickens are still alive. See how they move in the video,’ says a voice.
The authorities later get wind of Muhannad’s Islamist activities in Graz and Syria. However, the Graz Higher Regional Court remarkably released the suspect twice, which ultimately enabled him to escape.
Initially, the suspect’s pre-trial detention was lifted on the 11th of March 2023 ‘because the Higher Regional Court did not consider any grounds for detention to be fulfilled’, Stefan Koller from the Higher Regional Court of Graz told exxpress. The public prosecutor’s office discontinued the investigation for the time being. However, an anonymous and authoritative witness was mistakenly named in the decision of the Higher Regional Court, as reported by the newspaper Krone.
Charges of terrorist association and criminal organisation were finally brought last year. At the trial on the 11th December 2024, the witness finally appeared in court, intimidated. It turned out that he had been threatened with death by the defendant’s family in the meantime. ‘I don’t want to say anything, I’m being threatened,’ he said. Family members of Muhannad Z. had ‘visited’ him at home, a Facebook message was presented to the court: ‘You are playing with your blood and life,’ it said. It also states that Muhannad Z. would cut the witness in half.
The public prosecutor had had enough and requested the immediate arrest of the defendant on the grounds of risk of concealment. Three days later, however, the suspect was released from custody by the Higher Regional Court following an appeal by his defence lawyer.
The trial was due to continue on Thursday, but the suspect has since returned to Syria with his family, where he plans to open a pharmacy, according to his defence lawyer.
Stefan Koller from Graz Higher Regional Court reports on the release from custody in mid-December: ‘The reasons for this were the lack of an urgent suspicion regarding the offence of coercion according to Article 12, second case, 105 Para. 1 of the Criminal Code and the absence of a reason for detention based on the risk of concealment’.
The public prosecutor’s office has now applied for a European arrest warrant. Muhannad Z. can no longer move freely in Europe.
https://exxpress.at/news/graz-terroristenfuehrer-50-fluechtet-vor-prozess-postet-videos-aus-syrien