Terrorism : a Spanish citizen attest before a Judge that "Mujaheedins can never be terrorists"

A man accused of posting videos on the internet and of writing more than 1,500 comments on the web allegedly glorifying Al-Qaeda, Gonzalo López Royo, defended last Monday in a court hearing, that a "mujahideen can never be a terrorist", because "Islam is the religion of peace". He compared mujaheedins with "Bosnians who defended their home, their wife and their sons".

State Prosecutor Teresa Sandoval has asked for an 18-months prison term for López Royo and for Fath Allah Sadaq, also at court hearing this Monday, for "glorifying, justifying and giving publicity to Islamist terrorist organizations, persons and deeds" since 2006 in an English-speaking website. Despite it being of restricted access, it had, at least, 1,300 users per year", according to an expert from the Civil Guard. The defense attorney is asking for a full acquittal of both defendants.

Both websurfers, of Spanish and Moroccan nationality respectively, acknowledged they publicized comments and posted videos about Al-Qaeda, Bin Laden and Islamic Jihad, although, according to Mr. López Royo's statement, his intention "was not to support damaging anyone, but to comment news in a positive and constructive way, not glorifying anyone who is a bad guy".

On the other hand, Mr. Allah Sadaq assured that he wanted to fight against "US censorship in the Iraqi war", because Al-Qaeda was an interested part in the conflict and "also the only source of information". He added he didn't know he was committing a crime and that, when he knew it, he erased the images, three months before being arrested.

According to the State Prosecutor's provisional conclusions, Mr. López Royo wrote about 1,500 comments claiming for the constitution of a Caiphate in Spain. He also acknowledged being the author of several drawings which were included in a video that Mr. Allah Sadaq made in June 2008 honoring Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi, Al-Qaeda leader killed in Iraq.

During the court hearing, he pointed out that he was speaking of the "caliphate in an spiritual meaning", because what he really defends is the "comeback of the old Spanish splendor", in subjects like medicine, art or literature .

Mr. López Royo, born in Zaragoza, explained  he is sided with the "families that suffer and the children that are killed". He added that he wants to collaborate with some terrorists' victims association to make everyone understand that he only wants to defend the victims. He also stated that he is "an Islam sympathiser" but  not an Islam´s believer  "I have ever condemned terrorism  . I would be the first one to inform about a terrorist attack", he stressed .

The State Prosecutor, later on, in her closing arguments stated that both offenders "glorified  and praised Al-Qaeda" and   she affirmed that the men ´s allegations were invalid  since the videos were shown , and their comments read  to during the trial proceedings -

Mr. López Royo's defense attorney brought in a psychiatrist whose evaluation showed  a "double personality disorder" . The report also says that the accused "wanted to get out of mediocrity but had failed" .It also states  that he is "conscious of his misdemeanors  but he is unable to understand  the consequences of them .

The State Prosecutor remembered a post by Mr. López Royo, in which he mentions that "due to  security  reasons, he would not  longer post any personal drawing of Al-Qaeda in his webpage" .The magistrate also added that Mr Royo´s drawings weren't only simple portraits or cartoons and that since he worked in favor of the mujaheedins it was "obvious" he was glorifying them , and in turn he was "very conscious" of what he was doing.

Mr. López Royo also told the judge during the hearing that since he was "10 year-old" he had been interested in geopolitical problems, reason by which he had a lot of information in his house .

The accused, who used the nick "salaam 1420″ and showed a photography of a man wielding an axe, fantasized in the website about being a "mujaheedins commander to maintain alive a prisoner during 30 seconds to see him swallowing his own blood". He also said in another post that he had "bombed" his city with stickers that showed an AK-47 and encouraged "Maghrebi boys" to "support the troops" with the slogan "There is no God but Allah".

He also posted four videos in the net dedicated to Chechen "guerrilla fighters", the Muslims who are "suffering at the hands of the Infidels" in Afghanistan, Algeria  and Iraq and the "combattants" of the "Palestinian group Hamas".

Mr. Allah Sadaq, on the other hand, made other videos in which he glorified terrorist leaders Osama bin Laden, Al-zarqawi and Al-Zawahiri and approved of a terrorist attack by Jihadists in Ramada (Iraq). In his house, police found two books about Jihad's teachings, dossiers about Al-Qaeda and drawings and cartoons related to ETA, GRAPO and other terrorist groups.