Germany: Syrian goes on trial for alleged IS membership

BERLIN – A 26-year-old Syrian man has gone on trial in southern Germany for allegedly having been a member of the Islamic State group.

The man, identified only as Faisal A. H. due to German privacy rules, appeared before the Stuttgart regional court on Thursday. He is charged with “membership in a foreign terrorist organization.”

German prosecutors say he joined a paramilitary group fighting the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2013 and later switched to IS.

They say the extremist group imprisoned him as a suspected government spy. But after undergoing “re-education” and swearing loyalty to IS, H. allegedly was allowed to rejoin and made to clear seized houses and spy on residents of Tabqa.

The defendant left Syria for Germany at the end of 2014.