Emrah Erdoğan

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the singer and actor of the same name, see Emrah (singer) .

Emrah Erdoğan , alias Salahuddin al-Kurdi or Abu Khattab (born February 2, 1988 in Karlıova , Turkey ), is considered a German member of the terrorist groups al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab . In June 2012, Erdogan was caught and in January 2014 the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main to a total freedom penalty of seven years' imprisonment, which he is currently in prison Werl is serving.

Life

Erdoğan came to Germany in 1990 with his Kurdish family as a Turkish immigrant , where he lived with his parents, the two older sisters and the younger brothers Bünyamin and Yusuf in the Wuppertal district of Vohwinkel . In 2000 he became a German citizen . According to his own account, he developed into the “black sheep of the family” because he “did a lot of bad things” and was only interested in discos, drugs and fights. When Erdoğan's sister married an aspiring preacher who had trained in Pakistan , the father and his son-in-law sent him to a Pakistani Koran school in order to save Emrah from a criminal career. There he came into contact with radical Muslims from the United States, Great Britain, Australia, East Africa and the Caucasus.

Upon his return from Pakistan, his parents found that their son was continuing to let the school slide, that he was also smoking and drinking. After a difficult school period, which he finished without a school leaving certificate, he did not acquire any professional training. In this situation, the parents did not seek help from public or private institutions, but instead expelled the son from the house. As a street gangster, he then committed robberies. At the age of 17, he was sentenced to prison for the first time for aggravated blackmail. A second conviction followed in 2007 for collective theft, aggravated extortion and dangerous physical harm. The prison sentence, which was measured at two years and six months, was served in the Siegburg correctional facility . While in custody, he eagerly read the Koran . In 2009 he married. There are two sons from this marriage. After his release from prison, he dressed in long robes and had a beard. Together with his younger brother Bünyamin, he visited the Wuppertal mosque community "Schabab an-Nur". The Salafist Imam Abu Jibriel preached there.

In April 2010 Erdoğan traveled to Turkey with ex-professional footballer Burak Karan . While Karan, who later died in the civil war in Syria , returned to Germany, Erdoğan went from there to Pakistan, to Mir Ali, a Pashtun- inhabited village in the Afghan-Pakistani border region of Wasiristan , where Erdoğan rented a homestead and housed other jihadists from Germany and joined the Islamic Movement Uzbekistan or al-Qaeda to fight as a fighter under the name Salahuddin al-Kurdi in a “ holy war ”. During his task of recruiting fighters and raising money, he suggested in a phone call with a family member that his brother Yusuf should raid a supermarket in Wuppertal.

Erdoğan's brother Bünyamin also traveled to Waziristan in August 2010 to take part in the armed jihad . Telephone calls by the Erdoğan brothers, including with their brother Yusuf, who remained in Germany, had been bugged by the Federal Criminal Police Office since the summer of 2010 , after the Düsseldorf public prosecutor began investigations into Bünyamin Erdoğan and other suspects on “suspicion of preparing a serious criminal offense” in July 2010 would have. According to information from German government circles, the results of investigations flowed to US agencies, which possibly enabled conclusions to be drawn about the whereabouts of Bünyamin Erdoğan. From the monitored telephone calls, the authorities learned that Bünyamin Erdoğan had joined several insurgent groups one after the other and that he had received a machine gun as well as weapons and combat training. They also learned on September 7, 2010 that a meeting was planned for October 4 to discuss and promote a suicide attack by Bünyamin Erdoğan against a military facility of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). On September 28, 2010, the security authorities classified him and his brother Emrah as one of the “most dangerous Islamist terrorists in or from Germany” (“ dangerous ”). On October 4, 2010, the Erdoğan brothers actually met with leaders of al-Qaida, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the movement of the Pakistani Taliban . At this meeting, a drone attack occurred in which Bünyamin Erdoğan, a management cadre and three unidentified people were killed. Emrah Erdoğan, who briefly left the building that was shot at with a Hellfire missile during the drone attack , survived the attack, as did his pregnant wife and son.

In November 2010 he called the Federal Criminal Police Office and pretended to the authorities that he had doubts about his fight and that he wanted to come back to Germany. Against the assurance of impunity and the payment of a large sum of money, he wanted to provide more information on terrorist attacks by a “Moroccan cell” that were imminent in Germany, in particular an attack on the German Bundestag housed in the Reichstag building . Since the call matched a current threat analysis at the time, the then Federal Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maizière then went public and warned them of terrorist attacks. He also ordered increased security at train stations and public buildings.

In December 2010, Erdoğan took part in Taliban fighting with al-Qaida fighters in Masud, Pakistan. On January 30, 2011, he explained details of the drone attack on October 4, 2010 to member of the Bundestag Hans-Christian Ströbele in an email. In February 2011, he traveled via Iran and Kenya to Mogadishu in Somalia after sending his wife and son back to Germany would have. There he joined the terrorist militia al-Shabaab . For this organization he served under the name Abu Khattab in particular as a contact person for people who wanted to travel to Somalia to support the terrorist militia. When foreigners were suspected as spies in the terrorist militia, Erdoğan advised like-minded people against coming to Somalia. In May 2012 he went to Tanzania , where he was arrested on June 10, 2012 at Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam after he was followed by Kenyan police in a group of four people after an attack on a shopping center in Nairobi and German authorities had informed the Tanzanian Office for Counter-Terrorism of Erdoğan's imminent entry. He was deported to Germany on June 18, 2012 and detained there on the same day.

On June 3, 2013, the 23-day main hearing against Erdoğan opened at the Frankfurt am Main Higher Regional Court . While the Federal Public Prosecutor demanded a prison sentence of nine years, the State Security Senate of the Higher Regional Court sentenced the accused to one of membership in two foreign terrorist organizations, one of which was committed to attempting aggravated robbery and disturbing the public peace by threatening criminal offenses Total imprisonment of seven years. He began his prison sentence in the correctional facility Frankfurt am Main IV . There he took advantage of the Islamic prison chaplaincy service . In May 2015 he was transferred to the Werl correctional facility in North Rhine-Westphalia .

The United States Department of State designated Erdoğan as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) on December 9, 2015 . He belongs to the group of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons , which, among other things, subjects the Office of Foreign Assets Control to special controls. In addition, on November 30, 2015, the Sanctions Committee of the United Nations Security Council placed it on the UN 1267/1989 al-Qaeda sanctions list , according to which UN members, with reference to Resolution 2161 - Endangering World Peace by Al-Qaeda Terrorist Acts - are requested to impose a ban on cash accounts, an entry and exit ban and a ban on weapons.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Özlem Gezer: Emrah and his brothers . Article from May 2, 2015 in the portal spiegel.de , accessed on February 12, 2016
2. ↑ Florian Flade: Ex-football professional dies in Syrian jihad . Article from November 20, 2013 in the ojihad.wordpress.com portal , accessed on February 12, 2016
3. ↑ Christian Denso: Bünyamin's death . Article from January 20, 2011 in the zeit.de portal , accessed on February 12, 2016
4. ^ BamS: German authorities gave Bünyamin E.'s cell phone number to USA . Report from August 11, 2013 in the de.reuters.com portal , accessed on February 12, 2016
5. ↑ A. Böhm, C. Elmer, N. Plonka: From the life of two German Islamists . Article from March 29, 2012 in the portal stern.de , accessed on February 12, 2016
6. ↑ Florian Flade: The day on which Bünyamin died . Article from July 23, 2013 in the heise.de portal , accessed on February 12, 2016
7. ↑ Chris Woods: Sudden Justice. America's Secret Drone Wars . Oxford University Press, New York / NY 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-020259-0 , p. 128 ( Google Books )
8. ↑ Florian Flade: "I lived under the shadow of the Koran" . Article from June 16, 2012 in the welt.de portal , accessed on February 12, 2016
9. ^ Ulrich Kraetzer: Salafists. Threat to Germany? . Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2014, ISBN 978-3-641-13745-8 ( Google Books )
10. ↑ Florian Flade: Emrah E., the terror insider from Wuppertal . Article from June 30, 2011 in the welt.de portal , accessed on February 12, 2016
11. ↑ Florian Flade: "Hey, what about Allah?" Article from June 18, 2012 in the portal ojihad.wordpress.com , accessed on February 12, 2016
12. ^ Tanzania arrests man over recent Nairobi attack . Article dated June 13, 2012 in the bbc.com portal , accessed on February 16, 2016
13. ^ Christian Fuchs, John Goetz: Secret War. How the fight against terrorism is controlled from Germany . Chapter 2, Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek 2013, ISBN 978-3-6440-3091-6 ( Google Books )
14. ↑ State Security Senate of the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main sentenced Emrah E. to a total imprisonment of seven years . Press release of the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main from January 23, 2014 (judgment of January 23, 2014, file number 5-2 StE 2/13 - 8 - 1/13), accessed on February 12, 2016
15. ↑ Akiko Lachenmann: Pastoral care for Muslim prisoners: the scent of roses for Allah's forgotten children . Article from May 4, 2014 in the portal stuttgarter-zeitung.de , accessed on February 12, 2016
16. ↑ Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/2245 of the Commission of December 3, 2015, Official Journal of the European Union of December 4, 2015 ( PDF )
17. ↑ United Nations: Reference: SCA / 2/15 (40) , November 30, 2015 ( PDF )
18. ↑ Terrorist Designation of Emrah Erdogan . United States Department of State press release dated December 9, 2015, accessed from state.gov on February 12, 2016