A German court has sentenced two men to several years in prison in the first trial of members of the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah in Germany.
Judge Petra Wende-Spors of the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in Hamburg said that it had been proven in court that Hezbollah was a terrorist organization abroad in criminal terms, and that the two defendants were members of this organization. “The answer to both questions is a crystal clear yes,” the judge said.
A 50-year-old Lebanese man was sentenced to five and a half years in prison, and the second suspect, a 56-year-old German-Lebanese man, to three years. They can appeal.
The two suspects were arrested on May 10 last year. The 50-year-old regularly performed as a preacher and ‘traveling sheikh’, for example at the al-Mustafa community in Bremen, which was banned in 2022.
According to the court, the 56-year-old was also active as a foreign official of Hezbollah. From 2009 he was a member and from 2012 chairman of the al-Mustafa community.
Hezbollah, literally ‘party of God’ in Arabic, has been banned from operating in Germany since April 2020.
