In Vienna on Wednesday night two men were sentenced to four and a half and six and a half years in prison for their involvement in the struggle of Islamist groups in Syria.

A preacher was also found guilty of incitement, but is already serving a 20-year prison sentence for other convictions.

Because the prosecution and defense have not yet commented on a challenge, the judgments are not yet final.

Stephan Löwenstein

Political correspondent based in Vienna.

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The 33-year-old main defendant Turpal I, who has been sentenced to six and a half years in prison, comes from a Chechen family who found refuge in Austria in 2004.

Until 2010 he won the title of Austrian national champion in the martial arts Taekwando several times.

In 2013 he traveled to Turkey with his then wife and a little daughter and from there to Syria.

Under the flag of the terrorist organization IS, he is said to have fought in various militias in the civil war against troops of the Assad regime.

Steirer converted and radicalized himself

The accusation of the public prosecutor that I. killed residents of occupied cities under the battle name Abu Aische ("father of the Aische") or ordered their killing, could not be sufficiently substantiated in the opinion of the court. A “key witness”, whose testimony had led to a conviction in an earlier terrorist trial, became entangled in contradictions and inaccuracies in these proceedings. Turpal I. stated that there was a mix-up. The court did not follow his claim that he only visited his brother's grave in Syria and only carried weapons to pose for photos. It found him guilty of being a member of a terrorist group and a criminal organization.

The other convict, who has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison and has also been excluded from the right to vote, is a 32-year-old Styrian who converted to Islam at the age of 17 because he fell in love with a Muslim girl and became radicalized as a result.

In September 2013, he traveled with his wife and young son to Syria via Turkey, where the two relatives stayed.

He was not accused of participating in combat operations.

He said he was striving to go home soon after his troops were bombed by Syrian government planes and he was scared to death.

He returned to Turkey in December 2013 and later accepted religious studies in Saudi Arabia.

During this time - he testified - he broke away "from this ideology".

Instigated by an Islamist preacher

The preacher Mirsad O., who was then active in Graz, is said to have played a major role in the radicalization of the Styrian.

Under the name of Ebu Tejma, he had some influence as a hate preacher against Western values, even as far as Germany.

He has served a 20-year prison sentence for more than six years.

In the current case, he was convicted as a "determined offender" and thus as an instigator, but this does not affect his prison sentence.

A deradicalization association certified O. in the spring that he had distanced himself from his previous worldview, would prefer to delete his previous sermons from the Internet, behave cooperatively and constructively and stay away from problematic inmates. The terrorist attack of November 2, 2020 in Vienna, in which four people were killed and many were seriously injured, contributed to his reversal. That shook him.

As a result of this attack, no proceedings are in sight. The head of the Vienna Public Prosecutor's Office recently said in an interview that 32 suspects were being investigated. The main culprit and shooter was shot dead by the police during his act. In the current process, Turpal I. and the Styrian were accepted. The two wives were credited with the fact that they had ideally supported the participation of their husbands, but believed they could not do otherwise.