On Monday, the Hamburg District Court sentenced an Islamist to six months in prison without probation for two counts of threatening behaviour. According to the court’s conviction, the 29-year-old threatened a fellow inmate in the remand prison with death, as a court spokesperson said.
According to the information, the accused had overheard a conversation of other prisoners at his cell window on September 6 last year, which was about the takeover of the Taliban in Afghanistan and about Salafists. When the accused intervened in the conversation, a fellow inmate shouted to him that no one had insulted his God. The accused then threatened to “cut off the head” of the other prisoner and “slaughter” him.
The prison administration had tried to avoid a encounter between the accused and the threatened fellow inmate, who worked as a domestic worker. Nevertheless, they met three weeks later during a day parole, the spokesman said. The accused had again threatened to kill and “slaughter” the fellow prisoner. The threats were in line with the diction of the terrorist organisation Islamic State (IS), the judge stated.
At the time of the crime, the accused was on trial for promoting a terrorist organisation abroad. He was accused of promoting the IS in social media and spreading calls by the terrorist organisation to fight against people of other faiths. The Hanseatic Higher Regional Court sentenced him to three and a half years in prison for this on December 3, 2021. An earlier sentence by the St. Georg Local Court was included in this sentence.
The district court had already sentenced the defendant to one year and four months imprisonment for dangerous bodily harm on March 25, 2021. He and two accomplices had prayed in the driveway of an apartment building on October 9, 2020. When a car driver tried to drive through, they beat him up.
According to the court spokesman, the accused had a “troubled” childhood. He had already been convicted of assault in 2016 and had served some time in prison. Afterwards, he had converted and radicalised himself.
The judgement of the Higher Regional Court is legally binding. If the new judgement of the local court is upheld, the 29-year-old would have to serve a total of four years in prison.