Poland indicts Moroccan man over alleged IS activity

WARSAW, Poland – Polish prosecutors said Wednesday they have indicted a Moroccan man for alleged participation in the Islamic State group.

The national prosecutor’s office said the man, identified under Poland’s privacy laws only as Mourad T., was active in Poland, Austria, Greece, Hungary, Serbia and Turkey from December 2014 until his arrest in southern Poland in September 2016.

The 28-year-old native of Casablanca remains under arrest. If convicted, he could face up to eight years in prison.

The prosecutors’ statement said the man had been a scout for a leading IS activist in Europe, Abdelhamid Abbaoud, the ringleader of the November 2015 Paris attacks who was killed in France shortly after them.

The man was travelling in Europe on a false document as a Syrian refugee.

Investigators found on his mobile phone instructions for making and using explosives as well pictures of sites that were to be targeted, the statement said.

The Rzeczpospolita daily, quoting anonymous sources close to the investigation, reported that the potential target sites were in Germany.

Prosecutors of the anti-terror department in the southern city of Katowice have sent the indictment to the city’s provincial court. The indictment is the result of close co-operation of investigators from many EU countries, the statement said.

It was not immediately clear when the court case could open or how long it would take.