Switzerland's highest court said Friday it had quashed the acquittal of two leading figures in an Islamic group who had been accused over two alleged jihadist propaganda videos. The supreme court said in a statement that it had accepted the appeal of Switzerland's attorney-general, saying that the men's alleged behaviour had not been properly described in the indictment.
The case is therefore sent back to the federal criminal court "for a new decision", the statement said. In 2018, the lower court had handed a 20-month suspended sentence to Naim Cherni, head of "cultural production" at the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland, for making jihadist propaganda videos in Syria.
The ICCS's head Nicolas Blancho and spokesman Qaasim Illi, who were accused of having approved the videos, were both acquitted. In 2015, the group, which represents a very small number of Switzerland's Muslims, published on its YouTube channel a film that included an interview with the head of the Syrian branch of the Islamist terror group Al-Qaeda.
A second film was screened that year in a hotel in the Swiss city of Winterthur, before being published on the YouTube channel. Besides quashing the acquittal of Blancho and Illi, the supreme court also rejected an appeal by Cherni against his conviction.
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