Court upholds sentences of Hungarian men charged with terrorism

An appellate court on Thursday upheld a four-year prison term for a Hungarian man who attempted to join the Islamic State terrorist organisation.

The court also upheld the two-year prison sentence of another Hungarian man who showed interest in IS on charges of attempted terrorism, Tamás Ferenczy, the spokesman of the court in Győr, in north-western Hungary, said in a statement.

The two men maintained contact but carried out their activities alone, suggesting they were personally motivated to get in touch with IS, he said.

The primary suspect established contact online with a man called Abu Isa and arranged a meeting with him in Istanbul on January 13, 2015. They had agreed to travel onwards to Syria.

As the meeting fell through due to Abu Isa’s absence, the Hungarian man travelled on to the Syrian-Turkish border on his own. It was there that he was arrested and deported to Hungary.

He established online contact in January, 2015 with the secondary defendant, who downloaded video footage of executions carried out by IS and images of weapons the following year.

This man also posted a recording in which he took an oath to join the terrorist organisation.

On July 16 in the same year, he registered as Mohamed M. on a social media site and posted threats to carry out a terrorist act. This online activity took place two days after the terrorist attack in Nice.

The Győr court upheld the ruling passed in Székesfehérvár on March 28 this year, Ferenczy said.

Source: MTI