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On 27 January 2015, the Hague Court of Appeal convicted Omar H. for training for terrorism and making preparations to commit arson and/or an explosion. Thus, the Appeals Court agreed with the District Court of Rotterdam that Omar H. had prepared to commit arson and/or an explosion. However, it distanced itself from the District Court’s finding that Omar H. had not trained for terrorism as, according to the District Court, his actions could not be considered as “training”. On the contrary, the Hague Court of Appeal decided that training for terrorism had to be interpreted broadly. Researching how to make bombs online, and buying items to make explosive devices in light of Omar H’s interest in jihad and travel to Syria were sufficient to prove he had trained himself to commit a terrorist crime. Omar H. was sentenced in total to 18 months’ imprisonment by the Court of Appeal.  

On 1 December 2014 Ms. Shukri F., a young Dutch woman, was acquitted on two charges by the District Court of The Hague. She was charged with 1) recruiting people to join the armed struggle in Syria, and; 2) incitement to commit terrorist crimes and dissemination of and collecting inciting material. Although the Court acquitted her, the Prosecutor appealed. 

The defendant was allegedly active in spreading the virtues of Islamic orthodoxy in multiple ways. First, she used social media and gave lectures about Islam. Second, she encouraged multiple women (some underage) to marry and to depart to Syria. Third, she married a man who she supported in his wish to go to Syria. After he had left for Syria she divorced him and married another man, Maher H., who she also encouraged to depart to Syria.

The Court of Appeal ruled that it could not establish that the defendant recruited people to join the armed struggle in Syria. It could establish, however, that 2 videos she had posted on Twitter amounted to the dissemination of inciting materials. For that reason she was sentenced to a suspended imprisonment term of 6 months and a probation period of 2 years.

Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, Ziyad Yaghi, and Hysen Sherifi are three Americans charged with conspiring to engage in various terrorist activities. The district court convicted them of various counts of conspiring to commit acts of terrorism abroad. Sherifi was also convicted of conspiring to kill members of the uniformed services within the United States.

The defendants had performed various overt acts in furtherance of a terrorist conspiracy, including travelling to the Middle East, participating in weapons trainings and creating a weapons arsenal, raising money for violent jihadist efforts, and posting about their extremist beliefs on social media.

On appeal to the Fourth Circuit, the appellants challenged their convictions on constitutional and evidentiary grounds. They first argued that the convictions were based on constitutionally protected speech (First Amendment). They also made various evidentiary challenges, including a challenge to the admissibility of lay and expert witness testimony, as well as social media videos and videos collected from defendant’s cell phone demonstrating weapon training. Finally, they challenged the sufficiency of the evidence to support their conviction.

The Court dismissed all of the appellant’s challenges and upheld the district court’s conviction on all of the charges.

On 29 September 2016, Amin Mohamed was sentenced by an Australian court to 5,5 years’ imprisonment for attempting to travel to Syria and fight there. Mr. Mohamed, a New Zealander, was convicted by a jury in October 2016 for booking flights to Turkey, and receiving the contact details of a man who would assist him (and others) getting from Turkey to Syria with the intention of fighting in the ongoing armed conflict there. In this venture, Mr. Mohamed had been assisted by Hamdi Alqudsi, another man convicted earlier in 2016 for assisting seven would-be foreign fighters with travel to Syria. Mr. Mohamed was prevented from undertaking this travel in September 2013 due to the revocation of his passport and will likely face deportation to New Zealand at the end of his imprisonment.