Friday, October 3, 2014

Belgium is Putting Their Jihadists on Trial

Trial opens for Sharia4Belgian terror suspects
Nabil Kasmi left for Syria's battlefields in May 2012, the first jihadist an extremist Islamic group named Sharia4Belgium dispatched from this city, Belgian authorities allege.
On Monday, the 23-year-old Mr. Kasmi and 45 other Sharia4Belgium members will go on trial, in Europe's most high-profile legal effort yet to address a dangerous new reality of the bloody war in Syria and Iraq: Europe is increasingly becoming a recruiting ground for jihadists heading there to join terrorist groups like Islamic State.
In the months after Mr. Kasmi left, dozens of Sharia4Belgium members allegedly joined him to fight to create a puritanical Islamic nation, Belgian authorities say, helping turn Belgium into a hub for jihadists going to Syria. Prosecutors will try those members, including 38 who are still believed to be in Syria, before Antwerp's criminal court on charges ranging from terrorism to kidnapping and murder.
The trial is part of a get-tough strategy Belgian officials say is stemming the flow of people leaving for groups like Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. It is clear that potential jihadists "don't want to go to jail, which helps us a lot," a senior Antwerp police official says.
Lawyers for Fouad Belkacem and Hakim Elouassaki
shown at the Antwerp criminal court last year.
Agence France-Pressse/Getty Images
With numbers of Europeans leaving for jihad on the rise since Islamic State declared its self-described caliphate this summer, many of the region's nations are rolling out tougher legislation, believing that broader surveillance powers and more prosecutions can reverse these flows.
European leaders say radicalized local Muslims returning from jihad in Syria and Iraq are a grave national security threat. Proponents of crackdowns on would-be jihadists and returnees gained ground after a Frenchman, who European authorities say fought with Islamic State in Syria, allegedly killed four people in May at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels.
Belgian Defendant Fouad Belkacem
Agence France-Pressse/Getty Images
The U.K. has given its top law-enforcement officials powers to strip passports and citizenship for terrorism suspects without any judicial oversight. France is debating a similar law. The United Nations Security Council last week voted to make it illegal to fight for Islamic State or al Qaeda.
But the Security Council also recommended that members adopt counter-radicalization programs for citizens vulnerable to those violent ideologies and help return them to mainstream society. Civil-rights groups and Muslim organizations say more aggressive policing methods could alienate the community leaders who are the best positioned to work with police to counter radical beliefs. Many of these groups say that governments instead should focus more resources on stopping radicalization from happening in the first place.
There are roughly 2,500 European Union citizens who have gone to fight in Syria, counterterrorism analysts estimate based on official data, with about 700 from France, 500 from the U.K. and 400 from Germany. Unofficial estimates run much higher.
Belgian authorities say roughly 300 Belgians—80 from Antwerp and nearby cities—have traveled to Syria, a disproportionate number for a country of 11 million. Many of them were members of Sharia4Belgium or have links to the group, the authorities say.
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