(Swiss Info) A Swiss court has handed down fines and suspended prison sentences to two board members of the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (ICCS) for jihadist propaganda following a retrial.
The Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona gave Islamic council president Nicolas Blancho and its spokesman Qaasim Illi suspended sentences of 18 and 15 months respectively. They were each fined CHF500 ($550).
The two men were retried after Switzerland’s Federal Court overturned in March the ICCS officials’ earlier acquittal for terrorist propaganda.
Blancho and Illi had been accused of broadcasting propaganda videos in support of the terrorist group al-Qaeda. But they were acquitted in 2018 by the Federal Criminal Court on a technicality. The author of the films, Naïm Cherni, was given a 20-month suspended prison sentence.
