The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office announced this Thursday that it had indicted two alleged members of the Islamic State (IS, Daesh). These are two young Swiss from the canton of Zurich with a worrying profile, who had already been sentenced in the context of the fight against terrorism for propaganda activities.
The two men aged 22 and 28 were arrested in June 2022. They are accused of having supported the Islamic State then of having joined it as “active members”, of having wanted to join the jihadist group in Syria, of having supported it financially and having organized “large-scale” propaganda activities.
Federal justice thus accuses the two men of active support for the Islamic State, in particular through the exploitation of numerous propaganda channels on Telegram. They would have been in direct contact with Daesh to do this and would have even wanted to “found a media agency dedicated to ISIS”. With a minor at the time of the events based in Winterthur, they would also have paid nearly 13,000 francs to the organization.
Concerning the 22-year-old young man, the public prosecutor relates his attempt to join Daesh, in December 2021. “He tried to go to Syria in order to engage there as an IS fighter. It seems that the young man was then ready to die in Syria as a martyr for the group and had thus cut all ties with his life and his entourage in Switzerland. However, he was arrested in Türkiye and sent back to Switzerland.
The fate of these two young men is now in the hands of the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona. They will be tried for supporting a terrorist organization, participating in a terrorist organization and multiple possessions of prohibited depictions of violence.
Pending judgment, the 22-year-old defendant has been free since last May. The 28-year-old is still in pre-trial detention.
