A German court jailed an Iraqi man Thursday for three years for distributing al-Qaida propaganda on the internet in a landmark case on recruiting for extremist groups. The regional high court in the northwestern city of Celle convicted Ibrahim Rashid, 37, of seeking supporters for the Islamic radical network in web chat rooms between October 2005 and October 2006. Presiding judge Wolfgang Siolek said the sentence should serve as a warning signal for other recruiters for banned groups. The court found that Rashid had posted video recordings in which al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden and other extremists urged attacks against the West on the Internet at least 22 times and supplemented them with his own remarks.
