Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court has given Naim Cherni, a board member of the Islamic Council of Switzerland (ICCS), a suspended prison sentence of 20 months for illicit propaganda for al-Qaeda and related organisations.
Two other ICCS board members, chairman Nicolas Blancho and Qaasim Illi, were acquitted.
The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland, which brought the case, called in mid-May for 24-month suspended sentences for each of the accused. The defence called for them to be acquitted.
The specific allegation against Cherni was that between the end of September 2015 and mid-October 2015 he made films in Syria with a leading member of the banned terrorist organisation al-Qaeda.
The films were subsequently used as propaganda for the al-Qaeda member concerned, according to the indictment. Two videos were published on YouTube.
The ICCSexternal link describes itself as the country’s largest Islamic organisation and says it focuses on representing the local population. However, its 3,000 members make up less than 1% of the estimated 400,000 Muslims in Switzerland
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Categories: Europe, Switzerland