The Appeals Chamber of the National High Court (AN) has confirmed the three members of a cell sentenced to eight years in prison belonging to the radical Islamist group Hizb Ut Tahrir al Islami, based in Badalona and that he was engaged in recruiting, indoctrinating, radicalizing and sending jihadist volunteers to participate in violent actions by the Islamic State in Syrian territory.
In a statement last Thursday, the magistrates dismiss the petition for annulment filed by the three convictedbrothers among themselves, which focused on the fact that the main evidence for the prosecution was the testimony of a protected witness whose identity was also preserved during the oral trial.
In its ruling, the Appeals Chamber analyzes the jurisprudence of the Human Rights Court, the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court on protected witnesses and concludes that the decision to maintain the protection of the aforementioned witness was justified due to the risk he ran.
Specifically, the aforementioned witness identified two of the defendants as the responsible for the radicalization of Mohamed Kaouchthe man who traveled to Syria to join DAESH and who died in a bombing.
Thus, the court considers that there was “a certain and serious danger in the person of the protected witness that justified the maintenance of protection in the oral trial phase in the agreed manner, even though it implies a limitation of the rights of defense.”
“Radical and extremist ideology”
The Chamber recognizes that the declaration of the protected witness was the origin of the procedure but adds that, as required by jurisprudence, from there an important police investigation work was carried out that corroborated the facts and that includes the appealed sentence.
Specifically, they add, in relation to the police surveillance, the meetings held between the accused, as well as all the documentation seized in the case that make up other evidence for the prosecution, in addition to the statement of the witness himself.
In the opinion of the Chamber, it has been proven that the three convicted were members of a terrorist organization. Hizb Ut Tahrirhe assures, “has a radical and extremist ideology regarding the universal implementation of the caliphate under Islamic law, the sharia, and does not hesitate to use violence as the ideal means for its implementation”, also having an “armed wing in the areas of conflict, Syria and Iraq”.
The magistrates emphasize that under these acronyms “autonomous cells have appeared made up of a small number of people who try to instruct and recruit people for jihad in countries currently in conflict or for the commission of terrorist actions.”
“This leads to the activity that is prosecuted in this case deserves the qualification of integration into terrorist organizationregardless of whether or not it appears on the international lists of terrorist organizations, which can only happen when the activities have already merited that consideration in a criminal proceeding,” the ruling concludes.
The National Court has thus confirmed the ruling issued last June by the First Section of the Criminal Chamberwhich considered proven the membership of the three brothers to the group that contributed to a young Moroccan resident in the same town making the decision to travel to Syria and enlist as a combatant.
The three brothers, for their part, denied during their appearance at the oral hearing held last April at the National High Court that they were engaged in recruitment, indoctrination and radicalization. “I never talk about terrorism because it scares me,” one of them said.
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In the first session of the trial, the defendants ruled out that the meetings held at their private home were actually meetings intended for a single purpose: the sending volunteers to participate in violent actions by DAESH in the Syrian war.
“Not all Muslims are radicals. We don’t all talk about the same thing, we also talk about women, football: anything,” said one of them who, despite recognizing himself as a sympathizer of the radical group, pointed out that these meetings were not attended by other sympathizers, but by “friends and relatives”.