Two charged in Germany with Islamic State membership

German prosecutors have charged two men suspected of membership in the Islamic State terrorist group, the country's highest prosecuting body said.

One of the two Iraqi nationals is accused of having fought for Islamic State in Iraq. The other is said to have served as a judge on a committee enforcing Sharia law - a legal system based on Islam.

It is now up to the Higher Regional Court in Dusseldorf to decide whether to allow the indictment by the Federal Prosecutor's Office in Dusseldorf and to order a trial date.

The two suspects were arrested in Germany in December and have been held in pre-trial detention ever since.

Criminal police also searched the premises of three additional suspects in Cologne, Chemnitz and Wittmund at the time.

The extremist organization Islamic State is a transnational jihadist group that controlled extensive parts of Syria and Iraq between 2014 and 2017. It declared a caliphate in 2014, enforcing an extremist interpretation of Sharia law in the region.

Islamic state fighters killed, abducted and displaced thousands of Yazidis , a minority religious group, in the region, in what has been described as a genocide by the United Nations, the European Union, Germany and other states. 

It is also responsible for a number of terrorist attacks around the world, including the 2015 Paris attacks that left at least 130 dead.

The group is designated as a terrorist organization by the UN, the EU and many countries worldwide, including Muslim states.

It was pushed back by an international coalition and largely declared defeated by 2019, though cells remain active in Syria and Iraq.