The three defendants, identified as per German practice only as Saleh A. and Mahood B., both 25, and 27-year-old Hamza C., were in the dock accused of belonging to the Islamic State (IS) group and planning the attacks in the Duesseldorf old town centre in 2015.
Saleh A. and two other suspects are charged with membership to the Islamic State (IS) and framing suicide bomb plots. Saleh A. who was in French custody was extradited to Germany in September 2016.
The trial of Syrian Saleh A., who claimed to have worked for Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT), started in Germany along with two other IS suspects.
During the testimony, Saleh A. said that he had crossed into Turkey from Syria in May 2014 with other suspect Hamza C. who had previously fought for the Nusra Front and the Free Syrian Army.
‘PROVIDING TURKISH INTEL WITH INFO ON IS CELLS IN TURKEY’
“I set off for my mission within the intelligence service”, 30-year-old Saleh A. said during the trial on June 6.
According to German media, it is claimed that the suspect worked for the Turkish secret service and provided the Turkish authorities with information on the IS’s cells and plans of attack in Turkey.
Meanwhile, German Federal prosecution office denied making a statement regarding the incident.
KILLING A SYRIAN SNIPER DURING CONFLICTS IN SYRIA
Syrian Saleh A. also confessed to having killed a sniper from the Syrian army, defending the murder as a “self-defense”. “If I had not shot him, he would have shot me”, Saleh A. said, adding that the sniper had killed his nine militant friends.
Saleh A. is also charged with this murder which he committed at the time when he had not been a member of IS. “When I saw how they fought, I thought I should not have participated in this revolution”, he said, talking about an intra-group fight for the spoils of war they had captured.
