Terror and Crime: Anatomy of an Austrian Jihadist Prison Cohort

Abstract

Between 2014 and 2018 there was an unprecedented wave of jihadist terrorist activity in Austria that was mostly related to the “Islamic state.” Meanwhile, many individuals have been or are gradually being released from prison. While many were able to disengage, two prevented and sentenced foreign fighters planned attacks in Vienna, one of them succeeded. In order to better understand this type of perpetrator, files of a cohort of 56 convicted jihadist terrorist offenders were analyzed. Half of this cohort were foreign fighters or attempted to become foreign fighters, while others contributed for instance by spreading propaganda, recruiting and assuming leadership. Additionally, a focus group with probation officers and an interview were conducted. The results shed light on various sociodemographic variables showing that there was not one specific profile. Rather, the cohort appeared to be very diverse, being comprised of all genders, age groups and socioeconomic backgrounds. Furthermore, a considerable crime-terror nexus was found. Thirty percent of the cohort had had a criminal past before their engagement in violent extremism. A fifth of the cohort had a prison experience before the arrest for the terrorist offense. The criminal offenses of the cohort were typical for the general population of probation clients which backs the notion that many terrorist offenders belonged to the same population and had switched from “traditional” crime to terrorism.

Keywords

jihadists terrorist offenders crime-terror nexus political violence foreign fighters terrorist roles

Introduction

Until the end of 2018, 320 individuals from Austria tried to leave for Syria or Iraq. Out of these, 62 were prevented, 58 individuals died there, and 93 returned to Austria. The remaining 107 were likely to be still there (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz und Terrorismusbekämpfung, 2019). Other individuals did not emigrate but carried out their activity in Europe.

Following their conviction and after detention, many have already been released or are about to leave prison. On November 2, 2020, an individual who was on parole after his prison sentence for having tried twice to travel to Syria in 2018, committed an attack in Vienna. Four victims died and 23 were wounded.

The attacker seemed deeply radicalized. According to Stevens and Neumann (2009), most of the definitions in circulation describe radicalization as the process (or processes) whereby individuals or groups come to approve of and (ultimately) participate in the use of violence for political aims. In order to bring more clarity to the concept of radicalization, Borum (2011) collected helpful definitions, among which he quotes the one of the Dutch Security Service (AIVD) that defines radicalization as “Growing readiness to pursue and/or support—if necessary by undemocratic means—far-reaching changes in society that conflict with, or pose a threat to, the democratic order” (p. 12).

Jihadism

The radicalized individuals in this study are referred to as “jihadists.” The terms “jihad” and “jihadism” have a complex history though. In Arabic, the literal meaning of the word “jihad” is “striving” or “exerting oneself” (Cook, 2015). For most of the Islamic world it primarily refers to the internal spiritual campaign that one wages with oneself following the Quran (Brachman, 2008). The term’s other meaning refers to military action with the aim of expanding Islam and, if necessary, its defense (Cook, 2015). According to Brachman (2008), the word “jihadism” is a modern neologism that is not native to Islamic history and a quick, albeit problematic way, to refer to groups of Sunni Muslims who use violence in order to pursue their universalistic political agendas. Nevertheless, the term is widely used.

The wave of jihadists discussed in this paper relates largely to the rise of the terrorist organization named “Islamic State.” After the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, one of the commanders of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) established the al-Nusrah Front—an official al-Qaeda affiliate—in the Syrian Arab Republic (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2019). In 2013, the then leader of AQI, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, renamed al-Qaida in Iraq as the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” which led to a split from al-Qaeda and the al-Nusrah Front (Lister, 2014; UNODC, 2019). However, the organization was able to conquer a large territory in Syria and Iraq. Therefore, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi proclaimed on June 29, 2014, the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, the creation of a “caliphate” and rebranded the terrorist organization as the “Islamic State” (Lister, 2014; UNODC, 2019).

Definition of terrorism

There has been a controversial debate over the past few decades on what exactly constitutes terrorism (Schmid, 2011). In the absence of a binding, international definition, various scholars have provided both definitions, and elements that underlie definitions. Weinberg et al. (2004) analyzed 73 definitions of terrorism from four leading journals in the field and came up with a consensus definition based on the lowest common denominator which reads as follows (definitional elements are counted in brackets): “Terrorism is a [1] politically motivated [2] tactic involving the [3] threat or use of force or [4] violence in which the pursuit of [5] publicity plays a significant role” (Schmid, 2004, p. 381; Weinberg et al., 2004, p. 782).

Among many other elements, this definition lacks the frequent mentioning of non-combatant targets and that those direct targets of violence are not the actual targets (Schmid, 2004). However, this element is not restricted to terrorism, as it may describe as well the tactics employed in war; for example, regarding Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Sánchez-Cuenca & De la Calle, 2009). In light of the debate, Berkebile (2017) drawing on Enders et al. (2011) defines terrorism as the premeditated use or threat to use violence by individuals or subnational groups against noncombatants in order to obtain a political or social objective through the intimidation of an audience beyond the immediate victims. For the purpose of this study, this seems a viable definition.

This study’s Austrian cohort relates to international terrorism as opposed to domestic terrorism as all individuals were affiliated with terrorist organizations that operated in various countries. Even the Syrian locals who supported a terrorist organization in their home country need to be classified as international terrorists as their organization targets not only their own government and fellow citizens (Rosendorff & Sandler, 2005) but also targets in Europe such as Paris, Nice, Berlin or more recently, Vienna.

The Austrian Criminal Code contains several offenses to cover terrorist activity. The most basic terrorist offense—membership in a terrorist organization (Art. 278b (2) Austrian Criminal Code)—requires as actus reus any kind of support to a terrorist organization such as spreading propaganda, transporting individuals to Syria or engaging in violence. The mens rea required is being fully aware of supporting the terrorist organization or its crimes. In Austria, most individuals are convicted according to this offense instead of applying other more concrete offenses as the definition is quite broad and its elements easier to prove. For instance, the prosecution may be able to prove that somebody was fighting but not that they actually killed a person. Additionally, many individuals are also convicted for “criminal organization” as the so-called “Islamic state” constitutes both a terrorist and a criminal organization. For the purpose of this study, this conviction for criminal organization was not counted as it is redundant from a criminological point of view.

Foreign Fighters

The recruitment of foreign fighters, which constituted a particular aspect of the Syrian civil war, gained a lot of attention. Although the term is relatively new as it was first used in 2001 in reference to fighters travelling from outside the conflict zone to fight for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan (Malet, 2015; UNODC, 2019), the concept of foreign citizens involved in combat is fairly old. Mercenaries have long been employed to build or enlarge armed forces. Great Britain, for instance, used 18,000 mercenaries in the American War for Independence (Thomson, 1996). In the Spanish civil war (1936–1939) there were 50,000 volunteers from more than 50 countries involved (UNODC, 2019). Borum and Fein (2017) however, distinguish between mercenaries and foreign fighters as the mercenaries’ motivation is primarily constituted by monetary compensation. But also foreign fighters were found to have diverse motivations. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2019), one of the most widely accepted definitions was put forth by the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights:

A foreign fighter is an individual who leaves his or her country of origin or habitual residence to join a non-State armed group in an armed conflict abroad and who is primarily motivated by ideology, religion, and/or kinship. (p. 3)

Crime-Terror Nexus

Terrorist and criminal offenders have traditionally been viewed as two distinct categories because of several, also conceptual differences between the two of them (Hasisi et al., 2020; LaFree & Dugan, 2004). Typically, terrorists have ideological goals and want to bring about change whereas non-terrorist criminals rather pursue personal or monetary goals (Hasisi et al., 2020). LaFree and Dugan (2004) mention furthermore that while those who commit common crimes are usually trying to avoid detection, those who commit terrorism are often seeking maximum attention and exposure. Moreover, they explain that the response to common crime rarely moves beyond local authorities whereas the response to terrorism usually does.

However, the relationship between crime and terrorism has a longstanding history. Drug trafficking was thought to be the largest source of income for terrorist organizations before the “Islamic State” had exploited oil fields in Syria and Iraq (Hutchinson & O’malley, 2007; Lister, 2014; Martin & Solomon, 2017). Nevertheless, the term “crime-terror nexus” emerged only in the early 1990s (Basra & Neumann, 2016). Makarenko (2004) who focused on the organizational level argued that the crime–terror nexus was a continuum. A single group may move between what is traditionally referred to as organized crime and terrorism. She explains how terrorist groups and criminal organizations form alliances with each other, employ the other one’s tactics or converge into one another. Already in the 1980s, during the rise of Pablo Escobar and the Colombian drug cartels, scholars tried to define the phenomenon of “narco-terrorism” (Basra & Neumann, 2016). Other terrorist organizations operating in this market include the Taliban that have taxed, organized, promoted, and protected Afghanistan’s heroin production and Hezbollah that has invested into South America’s illegal narcotics industry since the 1980s (Basra & Neumann, 2016). Hezbollah also has a strong presence in Europe where it carries out fundraising and runs a network of criminal enterprises for money laundering and dealing in arms and drugs (Levitt, 2013). The Irish Republican Army (IRA) was involved in smuggling cigarettes but operated also in other fields such as smuggling petrol, cars, prostitution and counterfeiting consumer goods (Basra & Neumann, 2016; Dishman, 2001; Hutchinson & O’malley, 2007). A good example concerning the formation of alliances between criminal and terrorist organizations following Makarenko (2004) are the Italian Red Brigades that established an alliance with the Naples Camorra, Italy’s most organized mainland criminal group (Dishman, 2001).

Basra and Neumann (2016) have observed in the case of jihadist recruits in Europe that what occurs is not the convergence of criminals and terrorists on an organizational level but the convergence of their social networks, environments, or milieus:

In other words: rather than being one or the other, criminal and terrorist groups have come to recruit from the same pool of people, creating (often unintended) synergies and overlaps that have consequences for how individuals radicalise and operate. This is what we call the new crime-terror nexus. (p. 25)

The jihadist terrorist offenders having a criminal background was observed in many countries. For instance, analyzing police files, two-thirds out of 778 individuals that left Germany in direction Syria were involved in non-terrorist crimes (Bundeskriminalamt et al., 2016). Twenty-six percent committed violent crimes and 24% committed property crimes. Also, 34.5% of Boncio’s (2017) sample of 55 Italian foreign fighters had a criminal record before leaving for Syria or Iraq. Similar results were found for France, United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy, Bulgaria, Netherlands, and Austria by Rekawek et al. (2020) who analyzed open access data except for the Austrian sample where judicial data were available.

Research Question

Who were the convicted jihadist terrorists in Austrian prisons? The present study seeks to provide the anatomy of a jihadist prison cohort including the crime-terror nexus.

Methods

Files of a cohort of 56 jihadists were provided by the Austrian Ministry of Justice. The inclusion criteria were a final conviction between September 2012 and May 2018 and an admission to prison, even if it was only for preventive custody.

The present approach allows the analysis of a cohort without biases that are often caused by open access samples which are not random and do not provide the same information on each case. Moreover, the cases of such samples are not comparable as the peculiarities of the various legal systems like the legal definition of terrorism or diversion (such as restorative justice) are typically not considered. Therefore, when investigating previous criminal activity by analyzing only convictions, one loses information on those crimes that were dealt with using restorative justice approaches. For this reason, information on offenses handled with restorative justice was included in the analysis.

Figure 1 shows the cohort according to the year of the terrorist arrest.

Figure 1.

Cohort according to year of arrest for acts of terrorism.

The Austrian Ministry of Justice provided the judicial files and prison files. For every individual there was an overview with demographic and legal information regarding convictions and arrests, a compilation of information by the social services and the plan of the execution of the sentence. Furthermore, for most individuals the verdict, the transcripts of court proceedings and the indictment were provided.

Although these kinds of judicial documents often lack information on the individual’s motivation behind the offense (King et al., 2018), they do contain detailed information on the offense, previous criminality, and sociodemographic variables. Moreover, judicial files contain the same information on every prisoner and this information is compiled by the prosecutor and the judge, who draw on secret service reports and police interrogation of the suspect and witnesses. Additionally, the accused is questioned by the judge and the prosecutor concerning the accusations. In case of prison files, also psychologists, social workers and prison guards contribute information.

All individuals were coded on an excel sheet following a codebook. In order to provide the “anatomy” of the cohort, various sociodemographic variables were selected. These include gender, age, citizenship, ethnicity, relationship status, education, employment, welfare, and religion. Furthermore, the crime-terror nexus was analyzed.

In some cases, specific information was missing. However, it can be observed that missing information on a specific matter is often due to the lack of this event in the biography (MNAR, missing not at random). Therefore, also the missingness contains valuable information that can be used in the analysis. Drug addiction for instance is more likely to be included in the file than the lack thereof. If missing information could not be deduced from other variables or circumstances, the case was excluded from the affected analysis. The exact numbers—how many individuals out of how many—were given in brackets like (5/56) meaning 5 out of 56 for example. In some cases, the total number is lower than 56; the reason is that for some specific calculations certain individuals were excluded, for example due to missing data.

In order to investigate the crime-terror nexus, also a focus group with a team of probation officers was conducted. The team was comprised of experienced officers, some being volunteer officers who worked for other social services or the prison administration and additionally supervised probation clients. After the initial discussion on criminals’ resources, the crimes committed by the cohort of 56 individuals were communicated to the focus group to fuel the debate. The question was in how far those crimes were identical to those committed by “ordinary” criminals typically supervised by the probation service. This took place at Neustart Vienna on October 3, 2018.

Moreover, a semi structured expert interview (Patton, 2002) was carried out on November 30, 2018 with a specialized probation officer of Neustart Vienna who works with terrorist offenders. The interview focused on his clients’ features, skills, and network. The probation officer kept his clients anonymous.

Results

The following chapter presents the analysis’ results. Firstly, the cohort is introduced regarding demographic characteristics. Secondly, the crime-terror nexus found among the cohort is depicted.

Demographics

Gender and children

The cohort consisted of 51 men and 5 women (9 %). While the youngest woman was 19 at the time of the arrest, the oldest woman was 38. Apart from one woman who wanted to become a foreign fighter, the others accompanied someone to Syria/Iraq. None of the women had a previous conviction. All of them were unemployed. The cohort of 56 individuals had 92 children.

Ninety-one percent (51/56) were males. The youngest was 14.41 at the time of arrest while the oldest was 49 years old. The mean age was 25, with a standard deviation of 7.5 years. Eight convicts were below 18 years of age and therefore minors.

The following figure shows the distribution of age for the whole cohort at the time of the arrest for the terrorist offense. Each bar is a period of 7 years (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Distribution of age (n = 56).

The average age at the time of the arrest for the terrorist offense was 26 while the median was 25 years.

Citizenship

Half of the cohort was of Russian nationality. Individuals who possessed the Austrian citizenship were the second largest group (18%; 10/56). Nine percent (5/56) were Syrians, 5% (3/56) were Bosnians, and 3% (2/56) were Turkish. The following Figure 3 illustrates the individuals’ nationalities.

Figure 3.

Nationality.

Cultural background

Cultural background or ethnicity are relevant as they relate to collective experiences of grievances, history and religious beliefs (Ajil, 2022). The present study tried to establish the cultural background for each case evaluating their origin, history and religion. This was especially difficult for individuals with parents from two different places and for the group of “Austrians.” Austria has always been a diverse country, being first the center of a multinational empire between 1273 and 1918 (Bérenger & Simpson, 2014) and more recently a destination of mass immigration from Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

The largest group were Chechens who were either born in Chechnya or in the adjacent countries. They made up 54% (30/56) of the cohort. Chechnya, or officially the Chechen Republic, is part of the Russian Federation. Although it gained independence from Russia in the First Chechen War (1994–1996), it is now again under Russian control following the republic’s defeat in the Second Chechen War (1999–2009). However, there is still an ongoing struggle for independence.

The second largest group—20% or 11/56—were individuals from Arab countries, mostly from Syria but also from Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, and Iraq. These are followed by Turkey, (6/56), Western Balkans (5/56), and Austria (2/56) (Figure 4).

Figure 4.

Cultural background.

However, culture is not just family background but also where individuals spent most of their life. Fourteen percent (8/56) were born in Austria and half of the cohort spent most of their lives in Austria, followed by 31% (17/55) who spent most of their life in Chechnya or Russia and 15% (8/55) in Arab countries, mostly Syria. In the Western Balkans, Turkey and Belgium were living one individual each.

Relationship status

Fifty-four percent (30/56) were married according to Islamic law or were in a stable relationship, whereas 46% (26/56) were single. Those who were in a stable relationship were on average six years older than the singles (22 vs. 28 years). Therefore, relationship status might depend on the age.

Socioeconomic resources

Very much research in criminology has focused on criminals’ lack of resources (Bjerk, 2007; Hsieh & Pugh, 1993). In jihadism we experienced a shift from individuals with rather high socioeconomic resources regarding education and parents’ income (first and second wave) to those with lower socioeconomic resources, characterized by unemployment and criminal background (third wave and generation ISIS) (Bakker & De Bont, 2016; Helfstein, 2009; Sageman, 2004, 2011) (Figure 5).

Figure 5.

Education.

Among the cohort there were individuals with very high education and on the contrary, some individuals ended their school career earlier. The majority—61% (34/56)—graduated from lower secondary school. Also, the proportion of high school graduates was substantial. In fact, the cohort showed a somewhat lower but still similar overall level of education compared to the Austrian population of the same age (14–49 years) as shown in Table 1 (Statistik Austria, 2018).

Table 1.

Education in Comparison.

	Lower secondary and below (%)	Higher secondary (%)	University degree (%)
Austria (14–49 years)	64	20	16
Cohort (14–49 years)	75	14	11

Fifty-five percent (31/56) were employed for some period in the past. Among them there were three individuals who were also entrepreneurs. Thirty-six percent (20/56) of the individuals learned a profession. Among those were many craftsmen: two electricians, one technician, one carpenter, one gardener, one welder, and one metal worker. Furthermore, there were three bakers and one cook.

The analysis above draws on the professions before involvement in terrorism. However, a terrorist organization, especially if it is organized like a “state,” also requires jobs to be done. Among the cohort there were many soldiers, drivers, and a merchant.

Previously in Austria, all individuals received money from legal sources. In roughly two thirds of the cases (62.5%; 35/56) the files indicated a kind of basic social welfare payment which is granted easily. The others were either employed (14%; 8/56) or received a kind of welfare that depended on a certain period of previous employment (16%; 9/56), 7% (4/56) were students in lower secondary school.

Religion

All individuals identified as Muslims. Four out of the cohort (7%) converted from Christianity to Islam. Also, one case of Shiite to Sunni conversion took place. All converts were characterized by strong determination: all of them wanted to go to Syria and fight (only one achieved his goal and returned). No case of “religious reversion” to the previous belief was observed.

Crime-Terror Nexus

In Austria many cases are handled with different means of temporary discontinuation of the trial or the penal persecution, like diversion or restorative justice, which leads to the closing of the case when the conditions are met. Therefore, mere convictions do not show a comprehensive picture of previous criminal activity. Hence, the following analyses also include information available on preventive custody and restorative justice.

The cohort of convicted individuals shows a substantial crime-terror nexus (Figure 6).

Figure 6.

Distribution of terrorist offenses, related and unrelated offenses.

Forty-nine percent (27/55) committed only the terrorist offense and had no other convictions. The other half—51% (28/55)—had also committed other criminal offenses before their terror arrest. Judging the individuals’ history, one can divide them into offenses related to the later or concurrent terrorist activity and offenses unrelated to terrorism (yellow field). Some displayed both kinds of offenses (field with yellow and blue stripes).

Twenty-two percent (12/55) committed criminal offenses related to their terrorist activity. These include offenses related to forged documents, suppression of documents, using another person’s ID, threatening others, illegal possession of weapons, and attacking a police officer upon arrest. Also, “novel aggression,” a recent violent behavior toward individuals or objects right before the terrorist offense (Meloy et al., 2015), was included. All these 12 individuals wanted to become foreign fighters, 1 achieved his goal.

Even larger—36% (20/55)—is the group of individuals who committed terrorism and unrelated offenses like theft, robbery, fraud, battery, drug related offenses, coercion, offenses related to forged documents, or suppression of documents. While a partial overlapping can be observed between the terrorism related and the unrelated offenses, the substantial difference resides in the purpose. In the first case, forged documents, someone else’s documents and weapons were acquired for terrorist crimes.

Among those who committed terrorist offenses and unrelated offenses there was a substantial number of individuals who first had a criminal past and only then turned to terrorism.

Individuals with criminal past

Seventeen out of 56 individuals—30%—displayed a criminal past already before the terrorist crimes (Figure 7). The most prevalent offenses were property crime, committed by 22% (12/55) followed by violent offenses, committed by 16% (9/55). Further five individuals (5/55) or 9% committed crimes against personal liberty (coercion and dangerous threat). If blackmail was included, which is considered a property crime according to the Austrian Criminal Code, this number would rise to 11% or 6/55. Conversely, the previously mentioned count of property crimes would not change when removing blackmail because these offenders committed multiple offenses. Additionally, four individuals (4/56) or 7% committed drug-related crimes.

Figure 7.

Types of crime.

Robbery is included in both violent crimes and property crimes due to its ambiguous nature. Violent crimes without robbery were committed by 8 individuals (14.5%) and property crime without robbery were committed by 11 individuals (20%).

Regarding property crime, 14.5% (8/55) committed theft, 13% (7/55) committed robbery, 5% (3/55) committed fraud, and 4% (2/55) blackmail.

The individuals with criminal past can be considered to possess the resources of criminals as suggested by Basra and Neumann (2016) and by the focus group of probation officers. For instance, they had access to weapons and contacts such as to a document forger. Furthermore, criminals already possess specific knowledge about law enforcement which might be useful also in terrorism.

According to the focus group and the interviewed probation officer, the criminal offenses of the cohort were typical for the general population of probation clients. This backs the notion that many terrorist offenders belonged to the same population and had switched from “traditional” crime to terrorism (Basra & Neumann, 2016). At the same time there is no specific profile of the radicalized probation client. As the specialized probation officer who works with terrorist offenders said in the interview:

I’ve realized over the time I have been working on this job that they are as diverse as all [non-radicalized] clients. (Probation officer, translation of the interview, November 30, 2018)

Terrorist roles

Half of the cohort—50% (28/56)—were foreign fighters or attempted to become foreign fighters. Thirty-four percent (19/56) were stopped and 16% (9/56) succeeded and returned. The group of foreign fighters is relatively small within the cohort as many died in Syria and Iraq. Eleven percent (6/56) can be classified as “local fighters.” They grew up in the Middle East and joined a local terrorist organization. In the present cohort nobody was convicted for financing terrorism. However, five individuals—9%—collected and/or transferred money to terrorist organizations or their members. Four individuals—7%—were considered “attackers” as they were related to different plots in Austria or abroad. Another four individuals—7%—emigrated to Syria or Iraq without taking active part in the fight. These were exclusively females who accompanied males. Also, four individuals—7%—were “criminal opportunists” (Hofinger & Schmidinger, 2017) who tried to make money by deceiving or collaborating with radicalized individuals.

Therefore, the vast majority of the prison cohort—68% or 38/56—engaged or tried to engage in hands-on terrorist violence. These are the foreign fighters, the prevented foreign fighters, the local supporters in Syria and the attackers in Europe. The others—32% or 18/56—contributed by spreading propaganda, recruiting, assuming leadership or by bringing recruits from Austria to Turkey for example.

Weapons and combat skills

Basra et al. (2016) mention the access to weapons as one of the most important “skills” of individuals with a criminal past. In order to analyze the cohort, the variable “access to weapons” was constructed. It contains individuals that had access to weapons because they used them for crime or because they were attackers or foreign fighters or served in the army. It turned out that 46% (26/55) of the cohort had access to firearms (blank cartridge pistols were excluded). In order to get a more comprehensive picture, also swords, blank cartridge pistols, and knowledge of explosives were included. This resulted in 54% (30/56) of cases. These numbers show that a substantial part of the cohort knew how to handle weapons, especially firearms. For 30% (17/56) of the cohort, the data suggested the completion of a terrorist training camp.

Network and forged documents

Both criminal activities and engagement in terrorism shape an individual’s network. Many crimes are committed with accomplices and prison experiences facilitate close contact to other criminals. A fifth of the cohort (11/56) had a previous prison experience before the arrest for the terrorist offense. Also, active practice of one’s radical belief expands the network in a specific way. Around radical preachers one can observe very committed communities.

Furthermore, the contact details of a passport forger were shared among interested members of the Chechen community. Three out of 55 individuals used forged documents. Another two individuals used other persons’ IDs. This makes a total of 9% that used documents in an illegal way (be it in crime, in terrorism, or in both domains). All of these individuals tried to become foreign fighters but were prevented. In terror-related cases, the documents were used for traveling or transferring money.

Drugs and Addiction

Seven percent (4/56) of the cohort were convicted for drug crimes. And although substance abuse contradicts Islamic commandments, it was found that 18% (10/56) had entries regarding addiction in the files. At least 14% consumed cannabis. Moreover, the files contained alcohol, psychopharmaceuticals, and party drugs.

There was no clear pattern regarding age, origin, or terrorist activity, except for the absence of ideologues and leaders. Concerning education, they differed from the cohort as none of them exceeded the lower secondary level.

The contradiction between adhering to jihadism and consuming various substances may be explained by the socioeconomic changes between the different waves of jihadism and what is referred to as “gangster jihadists” by Basra and Neumann (2016, p. 27).

Conclusion

The analysis of the cohort indicates that the individuals are in fact very diverse. They differed regarding gender, age, cultural background, education, relationship status, previous criminal history, and their terrorist actions.

Only 9% were women. While half of the cohort were of Chechen background, the other half was comprised of many different backgrounds. Fifty-four percent were married according to Islamic law or were in a stable relationship, whereas 46% were single. The average age at the time of the arrest for the terrorist offense was 26, and the median was 25 years.

Half of the cohort committed also non-terrorist offenses. While 22% committed criminal offenses related to their terrorist activity, 30% of the cohort already had had a criminal past before their engagement in violent extremism. Therefore, 20% (11/56) showed a previous criminal arrest and prison experience. The criminal offenses that the cohort had committed were those widely committed by young criminals. Therefore, neither in this regard a profiling was possible.

This diversity indicates that many terrorists do not fulfill common stereotypes. For example, after the attack in Vienna, several of the terrorist’s neighbors declared their surprise according to newspaper articles. Furthermore, this diversity may pose challenges to practitioners and policymakers, since there is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to disengagement interventions. Also, a specialized probation officer who works with terrorist offenders said in the interview that he had realized that they were as diverse as all non-radicalized clients.

When drawing conclusions from this cohort, one must always keep in mind the inclusion criteria. Being a prison cohort, it is not representative for an extremist or terrorist population outside prison. For instance, the cohort deviates from other populations as it includes only those foreign fighters who had survived their “mission” and returned to Austria. However, the prison approach has certain strengths. First, it delivers a clear picture of the crime-terror nexus among rather dangerous individuals as a prison sentence constitutes a certain threshold that distinguishes minor offenders from severer ones. Second, it reveals an in-depth view on the persons behind the label as the authorities collect plenty of information. Another aspect which makes this cohort especially interesting is the fact that currently many of these individuals are being released and reintegrated in society. As we have seen in November 2020, this is not always successful, and therefore it is important to reach a deeper understanding of this category of offenders.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor Dr. Palermo for their helpful comments on the paper. Furthermore, I am very grateful to Iacopo Gibelli and Rebecca Walter for their valuable feedback, as well as to Prof. Christian Grafl for his advice.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Jörg Peschak

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