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Arad woman accused of terrorist propaganda sentenced to spend 1.5 years in jail
A woman from Arad county, Maria Livia Baila, accused of terrorist propaganda and connections with members of a terrorist organization from the Middle East, was sentenced by the supreme court to spend one year and five months in jail.
Maria Baila is accused by the Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) Timisoara prosecutors of repeatedly accessing terrorist propaganda materials by means of information systems or other electronic communications means, as well as possessing such materials in order to become familiar with terrorist ideology, as part of a process of radicalization and promoting propaganda messages by any means in order to instigate to acts of terrorism.
According to DIICOT, since 2019 the woman has undergone a gradual radicalization process by means of virtual contacts with various supporters of a Middle East terrorist organization.
In this context, the woman repeatedly accessed terrorist propaganda materials, as part of the radicalization process and repeatedly and frequently promoted virtual propaganda messages with radical, Islamic ideas and concepts specific of Muslim terrorist organizations by using various messaging applications and by means of information systems and electronic communication means.
Prosecutors say that the woman explicitly expressed her support for the Middle East terrorist organization and constantly manifested radical anti-western opinions, showing her availability to fight on behalf of Islamic fundamentalists.
“During the radicalization process, the suspect was the object of counter-intelligence training sessions from foreign citizens with whom she developed collaboration relations, meant to ensure secret activities carried out and to prevent state monitoring. In this respect, the suspect started using several email accounts at the same time (up to 21 addresses at the same time) as well as prepaid cards which she changed at regular periods of time. Upon the indications of foreign collaborators the suspect started using VPN type applications to encrypt communications. She facilitated the arrival of foreign citizens and may have received various sums of money from her collaborators,” DIICOT mentions.