A court in Slovenia has sentenced an Iraqi asylum seeker to five years in prison for membership of Islamic State, in the first such case in the country involving an applicant for international protection.
The Ljubljana District Court found the man guilty of being a member of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) in Iraq in 2016, according to Eurojust, the EU agency for criminal justice co-operation.
The judgment is not yet final.
Eurojust said it supported Slovenia’s Specialised State Prosecutor’s Office in obtaining evidence from Iraqi authorities within the time limit for keeping the suspect in custody before trial.
The accused arrived in Slovenia in March 2019 and later travelled to Germany twice before being returned to Slovenia.
Slovenian authorities opened an investigation supported by information exchanged through international law enforcement co-operation, including with Interpol and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Evidence request handled through new co-operation channel
Further work with Iraqi authorities was needed to verify information and gather additional material for the criminal proceedings, Eurojust said.
The agency revealed it used a recently established co-operation channel with Iraq’s National Centre for International Judicial Cooperation (NCIJC) to facilitate contact with Iraqi authorities and seek guidance ahead of a formal judicial request.
Central to the case was evidence that the accused had been on the payroll of Islamic State’s Dat al-Sawari military unit, including receiving a salary and an additional allowance to support relatives.
The presiding judge said during the delivery of the judgment that evidence from Iraq required validation and was important to the case.
Proceedings finished on the final day permitted under the applicable custody time limit, and without the additional information obtained from Iraq the defendant would have had to be released from detention.
