‘I preach for peace,’ says man wanted in Spain on terror charge
A preacher accused of using videos posted on his YouTube channel to encourage young Muslims to fight for ISIL in Syria wept in court yesterday as he insisted he was promoting a message of non-violence.
Tariq Chadlioui, a Moroccan, is wanted in Spain after travelling to the Balearic Islands to preach and make a video, Toufiq Went to Syria, in 2014 and 2015. He is one of six wanted for membership of or collaboration with ISIL.
Mr Chadlioui has preached for 20 years and posted thousands of YouTube videos. He is reported to have spoken at a Paris mosque attended by one of the Bataclan concert hall attackers, who killed 89 people in November 2015.
Spanish officials have been investigating people involved in making three videos linked to the Al Fagar de Inca mosque on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca. They believe Mr Chadlioui is the group’s spiritual leader.
“It is ideal material for the recruitment of jihadists for the Islamic State and has been published on the YouTube channel” of Mr Chadlioui, the arrest warrant read.
Ben Lloyd, who was representing the Spanish authorities in court, told an extradition hearing in London: “The videos are said to promote a feeling of victimisation of Muslims as a necessary step towards their radicalisation.”
Mr Chadlioui was in Belgium before moving to the UK, where he lives with his wife and eight children. He is fighting attempts to extradite him to Spain on the grounds that it affects his right under European law to a family life.
He was detained in June, the day after the Spanish authorities secured warrants for his arrest and for five others. Four have been detained, including one in Germany.
Mr Chadlioui will learn next week whether he is to be extradited to Spain, where he could be imprisoned for 20 years, if convicted.
He has been in custody for the past three months and claims that Spanish authorities have misunderstood the content of the four videos, only three of which have been posted online.
The first part is clear in saying that “people that are going to Syria are very young mostly, on drugs and it’s against Islam that they should do that”, Mr Chadlioui said in often emotional court testimony. “That shows we are against terrorism.”
He said the fourth, unpublished part showed an actor portraying the foreign fighter’s father going to the mosque for advice.
“Terrorism does not come out of being in mosques and listening to speakers,” he said.
“He has uploaded thousands of videos to YouTube. This is what he does, he is an anti-terrorist preacher,” his lawyer, Malcolm Hawkes, told the court.