DAESH praising religious leader in court

The National Court will begin to hear evidence from today, Thursday, against a “religious leader” who, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, had “internalised the radical and violent jihadist ideology advocated” by the Islamic State and who had prepared to “begin a recruitment and indoctrination activity in favour of the terrorist organisation’s postulates on women”.

In its indictment, the Prosecutor’s Office asks to sentence OA to three years in prison for the crime of terrorist self-indoctrination. The accused, 34 years old, was arrested last June 2023.

The Public Ministry maintains that at least since 2020 and until his arrest “he evolved in a process of radicalisation, consuming jihadist propaganda on the internet on his own, with the intention of disseminating that content to third parties in order to attract new followers, maintaining contacts with people with the intention of joining terrorist organisations and taking the oath of loyalty to the terrorist organisation and its caliph.”

Thus, and “in order to carry out the violent postulates of the terrorist organisation, he began to interact through social networks with third parties, mainly women, with the intention of indoctrinating them.”

The investigation, the prosecutor points out, reveals that the accused “had internalised the radical and violent jihadist ideology advocated by DAESH, his uncritical adherence to the premises it proclaims, his eagerness to praise the terrorist organisation and its achievements, proceeding to disseminate its budgets. ideological, as well as their predisposition to move” to a conflict zone.

The use of social networks, the file details, “allowed him to contact people located in his same ideological orbit, in addition to obtaining media material from terrorist groups with which he shares extremist postulates, participating in forums where jihadist propaganda material is disseminated.”

He himself, in his intention to attract new followers, had “a massive sweeping phase in which, through any social network, he obtained the first means of contact and connection with women from anywhere in the world.”

Secondly, he proceeded to an initial phase of detecting those profiles that could be suitable and permeable to the postulates that the investigated person had assumed and adhered to his ideology, having previously sworn loyalty to DAESH and having a full feeling of belonging to said organisation.

“I was looking for a profile of a practicing Muslim woman, who regularly used Islamic clothing, such as the niqab, who had a certain orientation to a rigorous doctrine of Islam and who could feel attracted to knowing more about the life that a Muwahid should lead, accepting a rejection of Western life,” says the Prosecutor’s Office.

Finally, the last phase of this recruitment process “took place in the instant messaging application Telegram, considered” by the accused “as a safe and more private site to continue a conversation when its content led to an approach to the postulates of the terrorist organisation DAESH”.

His arrest was precipitated after an undercover Guardia Civil officer established a “virtual friendship on Facebook” with the accused.

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