A Frankfurt court on Friday sentenced two men to jail in separate cases for joining Islamist fighters in Somalia and Syria.
A Somali-born German national, identified only as 29-year-old Abshir A., was found guilty of membership of a foreign terrorist group for fighting alongside Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab militants.
The court in the western German city handed him a prison term of two years and ten months.
The same court sentenced Turkish-origin Ozkan C., 29, to two years and eight months for joining the Sunni militia Junud al-Sham in Syria.
In the first case, the court said the Mogadishu-born accused left Germany for Somalia in 2012 after becoming radicalised and was active for the militant group until early 2014.
He spent around four months in combat training after arriving, during which time Shabaab militia taught him how to handle weapons and employ guerrilla tactics, according to the court statement.
He was then sent to a Shabaab base but left “shortly afterwards because of health problems”, it added.
However he remained in Somalia until returning to Germany last year when he was arrested at the airport.
The accused denied taking part in any fighting in Somalia, where the Shabaab are seeking to overthrow the country’s internationally-backed government.
In the second case, the court said Ozkan C. travelled to Syria with his wife in 2013 to join Junud al-Sham, many of whose fighters later defected to the Islamic State group.
The accused received weapons training and taught Arabic to other German-speaking jihadists, the court said.
He returned to Germany in late 2013 and was arrested last year.
German courts have jailed a number of returning jihadists for their membership in terror groups abroad.
Five men were sentenced to prison terms of up to five years in 2016 for having joined the Shabaab in Somalia.
In another case that year, a court jailed three young German men for up to four-and-a-half years for having joined extremist fighters in Syria in 2013.
