'Sharia Police' gang face retrial after German supreme court overrules original verdict

Group patrolled streets of Wuppertal in orange vests, discouraging men from visiting bars and brothels and drinking alcohol

Supporters of the movement of Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA) hold German flags and a placard reading 'Sharia, no thank you.' (REUTERS)

A group of Islamists who formed a vigilante gang called the “Sharia Police“ will be subject to a retrial after a German court overturned their 2016 acquittal.

The seven men had been charged with wearing uniforms expressing a shared political opinion after patrolling the streets of Wuppertal in Western Germany at night in September 2014 in orange vests emblazoned with the words “Sharia Police”.

The group, which included Islamist preacher Sven Lau – who was sentenced to a prison term for supporting a foreign terrorist organisation in July - sought to discourage young men from visiting bars and brothels and drinking alcohol.

They reportedly carried signs in English declaring a “Sharia Controlled Zone.”

The city’s district court had initially ruled the men had not breached a ban on political uniforms when they approached people wearing the vests.

Judges claimed the men’s uniforms were not threatening or intimidating and therefore could not be in violation of the ban – which was originally aimed at preventing street movements such as the early Nazi party.

But Germany’s federal supreme court said on Thursday it would overturn the acquittal and order a retrial.

The court said the decision to acquit the men did not explain how the men’s action might have affected the people they targeted.

So-called “sharia patrols” by sometimes violent radical young Salafists have also been seen in other European cities such as London, Copenhagen and Hamburg.