The trial of seven suspected members of the Islamic State terrorist group started in Germany on Tuesday.
German prosecutors accuse the men, who are between the ages of 21 and 47, of establishing a terror cell in the country.
“They were pursuing the goal of committing high-profile attacks in Europe,” said senior public prosecutor Simon Henrichs.
According to the indictment, they scouted out possible sites for attacks in Germany and elsewhere in Western Europe. However, no evidence of concrete plans were uncovered.
A court spokesman said that the men had so far remained silent about the allegations. The defence lawyer for the oldest defendant denied the allegations at the start of the trial and explained that her client was neither a Salafist nor a terrorist.
The seven were detained a year ago in various locations in the western state of North Rhine Westphalia and have been in pre-trial custody ever since.
They are standing trial at the Higher Regional Court in Dusseldorf. The court has scheduled 45 trial days through mid-January.
Prosecutors say the men reached Germany via Ukraine, using the chaos unleashed by Russia’s invasion to their advantage.
Once in Germany, they had founded an Islamic State terror cell and collected money for imprisoned Islamic State terrorists in Kurdish camps, according to a federal prosecutor representative.
For months, they had been observed “with extensive covert measures” as they considered various forms of attacks, but without starting any concrete planning, he said.
A lack of money had played a role in this. A mosque run by liberal Muslims in Berlin and people of Jewish faith were targeted by the group, he said. “Their aim was to commit high-profile attacks in Europe in order to promote the inhumane ideology of the terrorist organization Islamic State – Khorasan Province.”
Five of them are from Tajikistan, one is from Kyrgyzstan, and one is from Turkmenistan.
The alleged head of the terror cell is in prison in the Netherlands and is being prosecuted separately there.
