Sauerland Group

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The so-called Sauerland Group was a German cell of the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) based in the border area of Pakistan and Afghanistan , which existed until 2007 .

The naming, which did not come from the group, refers to the German low mountain range Sauerland , in which three members were arrested on September 4, 2007 in a holiday home in Oberschledorn . They were later charged with membership in a foreign terrorist group , preparing a bomb attack, and dating to murder . On March 4, 2010, the three main defendants and one assistant were sentenced to several years in prison by the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court.

Scope and environment of the group

The Sauerland group comprised four men between the ages of 23 and 30 (2009), including two German Muslim converts and two men with Turkish roots. The criminal proceedings against her were opened on April 22, 2009 before the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court. Attorney General Monika Harms contradicted the assessment of the President of the Federal Criminal Police Office, Jörg Ziercke , who included around 20 Islamists in the Sauerland group : “I would be cautious with that number. The four men who are now on trial should primarily be described as the actual Sauerland group ”.

In addition to the closer Sauerland group, several people were sentenced to prison or suspended sentences for supporting the foreign terrorist organization IJU .

Investigations

In October 2006 the American secret service NSA forwarded findings about intensive mail traffic between Germany and Pakistan via the foreign intelligence service CIA to the German BND , which in turn brought in the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution . The Joint Counter Terrorism Center finally became responsible . A joint working group was founded in Berlin in which German secret service agents and American CIA employees worked together “closer than ever”. Under the name of "Operation Alberich", 500 officers monitored all suspects around the clock, tapped phones and bugged apartments and cars. The hydrogen peroxide solution procured by the group to build the bomb was replaced by the officers with a harmless substitute liquid at the end of July 2007.

The Egyptian doctor Yehia Yousif , who played a key role in the radicalization of the members of this group, had preached as Sheikh Abu Omar at the Islamic Information Center in Ulm since the 1990s and also frequented the Multicultural House in Neu-Ulm . From 1995 to 2002 he was in the service of the Baden-Württemberg Office for the Protection of the Constitution and was considered to be “the brain washer for many members of the Sauerland Group and for their circle of forty or fifty young people”.

Mevlüt Kar , the Sauerland Group's liaison to al-Qaida and, according to investigations by the Federal Criminal Police Office , procurer of detonators, was a contact for the Turkish secret service MIT , who also had connections with the US secret service CIA . The leader of the Sauerland group said that secret services “were not involved in the planning of the attack and in no way controlled the group”.

process

The Federal Prosecutor's office accused the accused in the criminal proceedings before the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court, among other things, of membership in a terrorist organization abroad ( Section 129b , Section 129a, Paragraph 2 of the Criminal Code ), preparation of an explosive crime ( Section 310, Paragraph 1, No. 2 of the Criminal Code), and appointments to commit murder ( § 30 , § 211 StGB) and an explosives crime (§ § 30, 310 StGB).

In addition to this charge, the leader of the cell was investigated for ringleadership in a terrorist organization (Section 129a (4) of the Criminal Code) and for fraud ( Section 263 of the Criminal Code) and tax evasion ( Section 370 AO) because his wife's income was too low and his own I did not disclose income from undeclared work when receiving support for living . The allegations of ringleadership in and the establishment of a terrorist organization in Germany were dropped.

When one of the defendants was arrested in the Sauerland region, he pulled the pistol out of the holster of a police officer and wanted to shoot the police officer. Therefore, he was also convicted of attempted murder ( Section 23, Paragraph 2, Section 211 of the Criminal Code) and resistance to law enforcement officers ( Section 113 of the Criminal Code). The defendants' confessions, which were mitigated, comprise around 1700 printed pages. On this basis, the process could be completed much more quickly than initially forecast. The confessions are seen, among other things, as answers to the question "how young men who are well integrated in Germany allow themselves to be influenced by a radical ideology so quickly that they were even ready to commit mass murder in the end."

The trial against the Sauerland group ended on March 4, 2010 with four convictions, each of which remained slightly below the request of the federal prosecutor's office. Two of the defendants received twelve years 'imprisonment , one of eleven years, and the group's co-defendant was sentenced to five years' imprisonment. The helper was released on parole in July 2011 after serving two-thirds of his sentence . The naturalized German, born in Germany as a Turkish citizen , was expatriated ; a corresponding suit against it was dismissed by the Sigmaringen Administrative Court on the grounds that during his naturalization process in 2005 he deliberately concealed the fact that an investigation had been initiated against him for violating the Weapons Act. This means that he is stateless .

An arrest warrant was issued against Mevlüt Kar in August 2009; however, he was not extradited from Turkey.

In February 2019, a Turkish national who had served eleven years in prison as a member of the Sauerland Group was deported to Turkey. The United States had been extraditing him since 2016 to try him for his involvement in three deadly attacks on American soldiers in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2008. The German authorities had requested that certain charges be dropped because of the prohibition of double punishment. American agencies refused. Two days after he landed, the Turkish authorities released Adem Yilmaz.

Movie

  • Peter Gerhardt and Ahmet Senyurt: Terrorist Hunt in Sauerland. How the BKA prevented a bloodbath . ARD documentary, March 2nd, 2009, 45 minutes.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Judgment against supporters of the "Islamic Jihad Union" (IJU). Higher Regional Court Frankfurt am Main, October 13, 2009, archived from the original on January 5, 2013 ; Retrieved December 1, 2011 .
  2. ↑ a b Chronology of the Sauerland Group. WDR, March 4, 2010, accessed December 1, 2011 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Judgment in the Terror Trial. Court imposes long prison sentences against Sauerland Group . In: Spiegel online , March 4, 2010; Retrieved March 4, 2010.
  4. ↑ 'Germany's 9/11' plot trial opens. In: BBC News. Retrieved April 22, 2009, March 21, 2017 (UK English).
  5. ↑ Jochen Gaugele, Matthias Iken , Maike Röttger, Claus Strunz: Federal Prosecutor General calls for more powers in the fight against terror . In: Hamburger Abendblatt , March 14, 2009 (interview with Monika Harms); Retrieved March 4, 2010.
  6. ^ Judgment in the criminal proceedings against Kadir T. for supporting the "Islamic Jihad Union" (IJU). (No longer available online.) Higher Regional Court Frankfurt am Main, January 26, 2010, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; Retrieved December 1, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.olg-frankfurt.justiz.hessen.de
  7. ^ Judgment in the criminal proceedings against Burhan Y. for supporting the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU). OLG Frankfurt am Main, March 8, 2010, archived from the original on December 18, 2012 ; Retrieved December 1, 2011 .
  8. ^ Judgment in the criminal proceedings against Salih S. OLG Frankfurt am Main, October 15, 2010, accessed on December 1, 2011 .
  9. ↑ Woman from “Sauerland Bomber” sentenced to prison. In: welt.de. March 9, 2011, accessed December 1, 2011 .
  10. ↑ a b Irene Geuer, Paul Elmar Jöris : Background - Home-made terror . Deutschlandradio , April 21, 2009; Retrieved March 20, 2010
  11. ↑ Dirk Banse, Uwe Müller: Trial against the Sauerland Group - the intelligence service was completely clueless . In: Berliner Morgenpost , March 15, 2010; Retrieved March 20, 2010
  12. ↑ phw / AP / dpa / ddp / AFP : German-American cooperation operation Alberich uncovered the terror plot . Spiegel Online , September 8, 2007; Retrieved March 21, 2010
  13. ^ Sauerland Group: Terrorists bought hydrogen peroxide for months .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Ruhr Nachrichten , May 12, 2009; Retrieved March 20, 2010@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.ruhrnachrichten.de  
  14. ^ Islamists from the Swabian province. NZZ, June 21, 2006, accessed April 30, 2019 .
  15. ^ E. Güvercin: Dubious machinations of the protection of the constitution are nothing new. In: Telepolis . November 17, 2011, accessed January 5, 2012 .
  16. ↑ Peter Carstens: "Combating Terrorism - Like September 11th" . In: FAZ , October 11, 2008; Retrieved March 21, 2010
  17. ↑ Wrong protocol made remarkable waves | Free press - Germany . ( Freiepresse.de [accessed on October 23, 2018]).
  18. ^ Elmar Theveßen: Terror in Germany: The deadly strategy of the Islamists . Piper ebooks, 2016, ISBN 978-3-492-95271-2 ( google.de [accessed October 23, 2018]).
  19. ^ A b Martin Knobbe: Judgment against the Sauerland Group: What role did the secret services play? In: stern.de , March 4, 2010; Retrieved March 4, 2010.
  20. ↑ The fifth man . In: Der Spiegel . No. 17 , 2009 ( online ).
  21. ^ A b Nicole Lange: "A Muslim must not accept democracy" ( Memento from November 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) . In: netzeitung.de , August 11, 2009. Accessed March 4, 2010.
  22. ↑ "Sauerland" -Attentäter: attacks planned for major cities . In: Stern , September 5, 2008; Retrieved March 4, 2010.
  23. ^ Sauerland cell: Terror preparations paid for with Hartz IV . In: Die Welt , September 6, 2008. Retrieved March 4, 2010.
  24. ↑ Holger Schmidt: Ringleaders should not be condemned as ringleaders . In: Trial against the Sauerland Group - Terrorism in Germany (SWR blog), January 20, 2010. Retrieved on March 4, 2010.
  25. ↑ a b Ulrich Egger: “Sauerland trial”: court imposes long prison sentences ( memento of the original from March 9, 2010 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Press release 09/2010 from the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court, March 4, 2010. Retrieved on March 4, 2010. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.olg-duesseldorf.nrw.de
  26. ↑ Helper of the Sauerland Group is no longer German . Spiegel Online , July 21, 2011
  27. ^ BGH issues an arrest warrant for alleged terrorist helper Mevlüt K. Spiegel Online , August 18, 2009.
  28. ^ The working life of the undercover agent Mevlüt Kar in Germany . Telepolis , December 2, 2011.
  29. ↑ Christina Brause, Ibrahim Naber: Sauerland Group: Terrorist Adem Yilmaz deported to Turkey. In: welt.de . February 5, 2019, accessed February 22, 2019.
  30. ^ Member of the Sauerland group deported to Turkey. In: faz.net . February 5, 2019, accessed February 22, 2019.
  31. ↑ https://www.voanews.com/a/turkish-man-wanted-by-us-has-been-set-free-in-turkey-/4802107.html