Four men have each been sentenced to between four and six years in jail by a court in Berlin for being members of the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
They are believed to have played a role in inspecting Hamas weapons depots in Poland, Denmark and Bulgaria.
The men, aged between 36 and 56, were identified in court only as Abdelhamid Al A and Ibrahim El R, both born in Lebanon, Egyptian Mohammed B and Dutch citizen Nazih R.
Berlin Court of Appeal said Hamas, "through its military wing, the Qassam Brigades, established or had established weapons depots in various European countries some time ago.
The men were arrested in December 2023 in Berlin, except for Nazih R, who was apprehended in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The arrests came two months after the October 7 Hamas-led attacks against Israel that killed around 1,200 people and triggered its retaliatory war against Hamas in Gaza, in which more than 73,000 Palestinians were killed.
European foothold
At the time, Israeli authorities said those arrests proved that Hamas was seeking to broaden its attacks to Europe, despite having historically limited its military operations to Israel's 1967 borders. Hamas has rejected accusations that it has members detained in Europe.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas had been "working relentlessly and exhaustively to expand its lethal operations to Europe, and thereby constitute a threat to the domestic security of these countries".
Other arrests have occurred in recent months in Italy and France over suspected Hamas financing. After the 2023 attacks, the European Union created a specific sanctions regime for Hamas and blacklisted members and financiers in the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Sudan, Jordan and Algeria.
After arresting the four men in 2023, German prosecutors said they believed the suspects had been plotting attacks on Jewish institutions in Europe.
However, the Berlin Court of Appeal said "no concrete plans for attacks on European soil could be established during the main trial". It added that "Hamas does conduct operational measures in Europe to prepare for potential future attacks on Israeli or Jewish institutions".
Arms cache
The men denied being Hamas members. The main accused admitted to visiting an arms cache in Bulgaria but claimed his trip concerned "private arms dealing", German news broadcaster DW reported, without specifying which of the four men it was quoting.
The four defendants were "personally tasked by their contact in Lebanon, a high-ranking Hamas official, with locating the organisation's underground weapons caches in Poland, Denmark and Bulgaria, inspecting the weapons stockpiles and reburying them," the court said.
Hamas, like most Palestinian factions, has a presence in refugee camps that were set up in Lebanon after the creation of the state of Israel to receive fleeing Palestinians. In Lebanon, Hamas has close ties to the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia and political party.
Defendant Ibrahim El R, who ran a restaurant in Berlin, visited and inspected a weapons cache in Bulgaria in 2019 and 2023, the court said. He received the longest sentence – six years in prison – for handling these weapons. He was found guilty of membership in a foreign terrorist organisation, two counts of unauthorised possession of weapons of war and possession of firearms.
The men also tried to pick up weapons from a location in Poland, prosecutors said, but failed to locate them despite several attempts.
Hamas is designated as a terror organisation by a large number of western and Arab states.
