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Germany: ‘ISIS Leader’ Sentenced to 10 Years, 6 Months

File photo of Abu Walaa. AFP
File photo of Abu Walaa. AFP
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Germany: ‘ISIS Leader’ Sentenced to 10 Years, 6 Months

File photo of Abu Walaa. AFP
File photo of Abu Walaa. AFP

An Iraqi man said to be ISIS’s de facto leader in Germany was sentenced to 10 years and six months in prison by a German court on Wednesday.

Ahmad Abdulaziz Abdullah Abdullah, better known as Abu Walaa, was accused of directing a militant network which radicalized young people in Europe and helped them travel to Iraq and Syria.

The 37-year-old was found guilty of membership of a foreign terrorist organization, aiding the preparation of subversive violent acts and financing terrorism, AFP reported.

Abu Walaa arrived in Germany as an asylum seeker in 2001, and was arrested in November 2016 after a long investigation by Germany's security services.

He is alleged to have recruited at least eight extremists -- most of them "very young" -- to ISIS, including a pair of German twin brothers who committed a bloody suicide attack in Iraq in 2015.

Among those who Abu Walaa allegedly helped radicalize was at least one of the three teenagers who were convicted of a 2016 bomb attack on a Sikh temple in Essen, western Germany.

Another notorious terrorist with possible links to Abu Walaa was Anis Amri, the Tunisian who killed 12 people when he drove a truck into a Berlin Christmas market in 2016.

Amri was allegedly in contact with Abu Walaa's co-defendant Boban Simeonovic, who is believed to have put the Tunisian asylum seeker up in his flat in Dortmund.

A direct link between Amri and Abu Walaa remains unproven.

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Vatican Holds 'Cordial' Talks with Vance after Criticisms of Trump Policies

Vice President JD Vance during the visit to the botanical garden of Trastevere, in Rome, Italy, 19 April 2025. EPA/ANGELO CARCONI
Vice President JD Vance during the visit to the botanical garden of Trastevere, in Rome, Italy, 19 April 2025. EPA/ANGELO CARCONI
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Vatican Holds 'Cordial' Talks with Vance after Criticisms of Trump Policies

Vice President JD Vance during the visit to the botanical garden of Trastevere, in Rome, Italy, 19 April 2025. EPA/ANGELO CARCONI
Vice President JD Vance during the visit to the botanical garden of Trastevere, in Rome, Italy, 19 April 2025. EPA/ANGELO CARCONI

US Vice President JD Vance went to the Vatican on Saturday to meet senior Catholic Church officials who have been sharply critical of his administration's policies, in the first such in-person talks of the second Trump presidency.
Vance, a Catholic who has clashed with Pope Francis over US President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's Secretary of State, and his chief deputy.
The two sides had "cordial talks" that included "an exchange of opinions on the international situation," according to a Vatican statement after the meeting.
Vance and Parolin spoke "especially regarding countries affected by war, political tensions and difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees, and prisoners," the statement read.
Vance said in a statement that he and the cardinal had discussed Catholicism in the US, the issue of persecuted Christians in the world, and "President Trump's commitment to restoring world peace".
Francis, who is limiting his public appearances on doctors' orders as he recovers from double pneumonia, did not take part in the meeting, Reuters reported. Vance is visiting Italy over the Easter weekend.
The pope, Parolin and other Vatican officials have criticized several Trump administration policies, including Trump's plans to deport millions of migrants from the US and his widespread cuts to foreign aid and domestic welfare programs.
"This visit takes place in a delicate moment," said Massimo Faggioli, an Italian academic at Villanova University who has followed the papacy closely. "This relationship with the US is a very high priority right now for the Vatican."
Francis has called the Trump administration's immigration crackdown a "disgrace". Vance, who became Catholic in 2019, has cited medieval-era Catholic teaching to justify the immigration crackdown.
The pope rebutted the theological concept Vance used to defend the crackdown in an unusual open letter to the US Catholic bishops about the Trump administration in February, and called Trump's plan a "major crisis" for the US.
"What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly," the pope said then.
Vance first visited the Vatican on Thursday to attend a religious ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica with his family.
The Catholic Church's worldwide charity arm has called the Trump administration's funding cuts to US foreign aid programs "catastrophic" in terms of its impact on the developing world.
The US Catholic bishops' conference announced this month that, due to Trump administration cuts, it would end a half-century of partnerships with the federal government to provide services to migrant and refugee populations.
Chieko Noguchi, a spokesperson for the US bishops, told Reuters that Parolin, the Vatican cardinal, is "well-informed of the challenges faced by the Church and her institutions here" in the US.
"We pray that the meeting yields positive and engaging dialogue," she said.
The Vatican statement said that, during the Vance and Parolin meeting, "hope was expressed for serene collaboration" between the US church and government.