Decision of the Judge for preliminary hearings of the Court of Milan No. 598 of 23 February 2016

This decision concerns the first case of an Italian woman convicted in Italy as ‘foreign fighter’, that is for the crime of participating in associations for the purposes of terrorism (Article 270 bis of the criminal code). She had also persuaded other members of her family to move, all together, to Syria for supporting there the activity of so-called Islamic State (IS). The judge for preliminary hearing observed, as a first step, that IS is not a state but a terrorist organization, as indicated by the UN Security Council resolutions and recognized, in consequence, in many decisions of the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation. Italy had jurisdiction on the case because the criminal activity in question had developed, at least in part, in Italian territory. The accused were guilty of the crime for which they were indicted, because ‘participation in associations for purposes of terrorism” may consist, inter alia, in carrying out preliminary activity such proselytism, recruiting, training and self-training, collecting funds, etc., if the same deliberately aims at supporting terroristic attacks, while the actual realization of any such attack is unnecessary to repression.