Trial Against Alleged IS Fighter in Vienna Postponed

The Syrian fled to Austria in 2019 and subsequently applied for asylum, which was granted to him in 2020. "He was thoroughly scrutinized. Nothing was found that would indicate ties to IS. The claimed asylum reason was recognized," explained the Syrian's lawyer, Michael Drexler. His client then lived for years as a recognized refugee in Austria and never committed any offenses during this time: "He worked diligently. He never committed a regulatory offense. He didn't even cross the street at a red light."

Investigations Against Alleged IS Fighter Following Tips from Germany

Last year, however, the Directorate of State Protection and Intelligence (DSN) and other security authorities received tips from Germany indicating a possible involvement of the father of six in war crimes in his homeland. During an investigation in Germany against several alleged IS members, an IS propaganda video surfaced, showing men armed with machine guns on a truck, who were evidently IS members. One of them shouts an IS slogan into the camera. This man is undoubtedly the accused, stated the prosecutor, who had investigated this case very meticulously.

The investigating officer from Germany brought new documents to the Vienna trial, including a Facebook profile allegedly belonging to the accused. The officer had come across it during his investigations. In the posts, the account owner "at least shows sympathy with the Islamic State," said the German investigator. The accused claimed he was not visible in any of the photos. The IS video, accompanied by Nasheeds (Islamic chants, ed.), was played in the courtroom. It showed distressing scenes: tanks and military vehicles in action, grenade launchers being fired, battlefields, and mutilated corpses. At the end, a prisoner placed on the bed of a truck comes into view, who is grabbed by the head by an IS fighter and turned towards the camera. Then another IS man is seen shouting in Arabic: "This is the religion! The religion of Allah! We are victorious!"

Facial Biometric Report Implicates Alleged IS Fighter

"We obtained a facial biometric report. The report concluded that it is the accused. His claim that it is not him is completely implausible," affirmed the prosecutor. According to the expert, the probability that the man depicted shouting into the camera in the video is the accused is 83.48 percent. The prosecutor emphasized that there are additional witnesses "who have clearly recognized him in the video and further incriminate him."

In the facial biometric comparison, explained the expert who appeared at the trial, the images of the protagonist in the video were compared with pictures of the accused. However, the video examined has "very good resolution," which "significantly improves the robustness of the measurement," said the expert. During the analysis, the sections of the face were measured and compared. Since the distances always depend on the resolution or the lens used, ratios are used. Subsequently, it is examined how extraordinary the measured similarity is. Furthermore, a data corpus of images of other people is used to ensure, for example, that there is no doppelganger, explained the expert.

The so-called Kappa coefficient derived from the analysis and subsequent comparison to the corpus is approximately 84 percent in this case. That is "an almost perfect match," noted the expert. The risk that the images do not depict the same person is "minimal." Several photos were presented to the accused before the main trial. When asked if he recognized himself in them, he said he was not visible in any of them. However, one of the photos presented to him was an image that the 39-year-old had used on an official document, explained another investigator.

Three Prosecution Witnesses from Germany in Vienna Trial

The Vienna Public Prosecutor's Office was able to rely on a total of three prosecution witnesses from the German proceedings during its investigations, who had accused the defendant of direct actions for IS. Two were anonymized during the investigation, while one man was willing to reveal his identity. Based on this evidence, the 39-year-old, who had lived in Vienna-Landstraße and worked as a restaurant employee until his arrest, was taken into pre-trial detention. However, these three witnesses were not available for the Vienna trial. One of them has since returned to Syria, and an anonymized witness, as well as the one known by name, did not want to come to Vienna.

In the trial, three witnesses living in Austria testified, whom the defense attorney had located. All three witnesses come from the defendant's hometown. The first two witnesses stated that the hair of the man in the picture, which according to the expert opinion should be the defendant, was too long. They only knew the defendant with short hair. However, one of the two had originally identified the defendant as the man seen in the video. He had emphasized wanting to remain anonymous because he feared for his family's well-being. He retracted his previous statements in court and explained: "He resembles him, but it's not him." The second witness, who comes from "the same family branch" as the defendant, said he could find "absolutely no" resemblance between the defendant and the picture. The third witness testified that he was not sure if the person in the photo was the defendant.

Terrorist Association and Criminal Organization Accused

The prosecutor accused the defendant of the crimes of terrorist association and criminal organization. At the beginning of the trial, she expressed confidence in being able to prove that the 39-year-old was involved in IS combat operations and the persecution of Yazidis in Syria in 2014. He is also said to have conducted prisoner transports and provided his business for the accommodation of Yazidi prisoners. Furthermore, the man is alleged to have played IS videos on screens in his establishment - initially a hair salon, later a mobile phone shop - and recruited youths and young men for IS. According to the indictment, IS supporters who had traveled from Europe to Syria as so-called foreign fighters were "received" by the 39-year-old, as the prosecutor put it. He is said to have taken care of the foreign IS fighters before they were transferred to training camps. IS pursued the Yazidi religious group with extreme cruelty. In August 2014, according to UN figures, 5,000 to 10,000 people were murdered in the northern Iraqi city of Sinjar alone. This crime is classified by the UN as genocide.

For Defense Attorney, False Allegations Made "Out of Sheer Envy"

The defendant claimed in his interrogation that the allegations were false accusations by compatriots who were "hostile" to his family: "There are always problems between the family associations." The defense attorney explained that initially, the brother of his client was wrongfully accused "out of sheer envy." He had opened a restaurant in Germany, which compatriots did not begrudge him. Since they could not "pin anything" on the brother, they went after the defendant. There were no screens in the business in Syria, and it was "far too small to hold Yazidi women captive," said Drexler. The defense attorney attached no significance to the expert opinion incriminating the defendant, as he stated it was "visibly clear that he is not the person standing with a submachine gun on a truck." The trial was adjourned to April 2 for the preparation of another expert opinion. By then, it should be clarified whether the defendant's voice matches the voice of the protagonist in the IS video.

(APA/Red)

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