Prosecutor: – They went to Syria when IS had shown itself from its worst side – Dagbladet.no

Prosecutor Frederik Ranke says it is interesting that the two defendants chose to go to Syria and join the Islamic State in autumn 2014 – when extremist group brutal behavior had become well known.

When the trial of two men on 23 and 46 year started in Oslo District Court Wednesday, use District Attorney Ranke much time to clarify iS ‘misdeeds summer and autumn 2014.

the two are charged with participation in a terrorist organization by having joined iS in Syria and to enter into terror alliance autumn 2014.

23-year-old has admitted having joined the iS, but denies criminal responsibility for terrorist associations. 46-year-old denies culpability for both charges and claims he involuntarily ended in an IS-camp in Syria.

Brutal actions

Ranke described how the creation of the so-called caliphate and IS ‘ravages in particular Iraq the major issues in the media in the period. The persecution and atrocities against Yazidi people in northern Iraq, kidnapping and mistreatment of Kurdish schoolboys, beheadings of Western hostages and executions of members of other groups fighting the Assad regime in Syria, were other cases that were widely publicized in this period.

– It is interesting that the two chose to join iS at this time, when the organization has shown itself from its worst side, says Ranke NTB during a break in the trial.

Trente up

23-year-old started his explanation Wednesday afternoon. He said he was inspired to go to Syria of friends in Fredrikstad who had already gone to Syria or who planned it.

23-year-old came to Norway from Chechnya at age 15 with his father. Dressed in a suit jacket and jeans he explained subdued and articulate about his spring 2014 preparing for their departure by including training oneself and take a øyelaseroperasjon to avoid being dependent on contact lenses in Syria. He held plans hidden from family and individual friends, who he thought would try to stop him if they knew he planned to go.

Covert Surveillance

23-year-old was subjected to extensive hidden investigation when police by chance discovered that he had returned from Syria.

PST feared 23-year-old was in the process of planning a terrorist attack in Norway or in the West, but found no trace of an impending attack. The hidden surveillance was therefore discontinued after two months, and police arrested him and 46-year-old in a coordinated action in July 2015.

23-year-old has said that there are two things he will not testify about the law provided that no doors are closed, and the press and the audience is sent on time. This applies to what happened in Syria that made him chose to go back to Norway, and what he said to IS’s management to be allowed to go.

23-year-old lawyer Svein Holden complained that the court had rejected the request for closed doors.

– It allows the court will not hear about these things, he said.

It’s set off three weeks of the trial.

(NTB)