German Salafist Preacher Who Led ‘Sharia Police’ Suspected of Supporting Terror Group in Syria

A German Islamist preacher was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly helping to recruit fighters and providing material support for a militant group in Syria, the Federal Prosecutor's Office said.

Sven Lau, 35, is suspected of recruiting Germans living in and around the western German city of Dusseldorf to fight abroad and was believed to have recruited two fighters already, according to the Prosecutor's Office. A German-born convert to the ultraconservative Salafist strand of Islam, Lau is suspected of assisting a militant group called the Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar, otherwise known as the Army of the Emigrants and Helpers or JAMWA, which operates in Syria and is listed as a terrorist organization in Germany.

The Prosecutor's Office said that JAMWA supports the Islamic State terror insurgency, and believe that Lau's alleged support for JAMWA logically extends to IS.

JAMWA is reported to have fallen out with IS earlier this year. In September, it pledged allegiance to the al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al Nusra a month after joining the group in saying that it would fight IS. A splinter JAMWA group is thought to still support IS, however, and that's the group that Lau is accused of supporting, according to AFP.

Ralf Jaeger, the interior minister of North-Rhine Westphalia, the state where Lau was arrested, said he was suspected of supporting a "terrorist" organization abroad under the guise of providing humanitarian aid.

Prosecutors said he served a "contact for those willing to leave the country and fight," and was involved in moving cash and equipment that included night-vision goggles to the group. Media reports have referred specifically to $275 in cash that he delivered to a jihadist fighter in Syria. He is due to appear in court on Tuesday, where a judge will decide if authorities have enough of a basis to hold him pending trial.

Lau became famous in Germany as the leader of a self-proclaimed "Sharia Police" patrol that began walking the streets of Wuppertal in 2014, wearing orange jackets. The patrols demanded that nightclubs close and reprimanded people for drinking. The men were brought to court and accused of wearing unauthorized uniforms in public, but last week a court in Wuppertal ruled in Lau's favor and dropped all charges.

VICE News interviewed Lau in 2014 for a documentary about the tensions within Germany between the far-right street movement Hooligans Against Salafists and Muslim groups. When asked about the potential for violent extremism among his supporters, Lau gave an enigmatic answer.

"I wouldn't be surprised if someone falls soon," he said. "But I hope something like that doesn't happen."

Watch the VICE News documentary Hooligans Against Salafists:

Jaeger, the interior minister, said Lau was considered a leading light among Germany's Salafist groups which he said were known to encourage young men to join jihadist groups in Iraq and Syria. Salafist preachers used propaganda that glorified violence and radicalized young men under the pretense of helping suffering people, he said.

The latest numbers for the Germany Interior Ministry report that hundreds of Germans have left the country to join Islamic State in Syria and Iraq since 2012. Sven Lau's lawyer, Mutlu Günal, is not commenting to the press on the latest accusations of supporting terrorism.