BERLIN, Feb 21: A Jordanian man was convicted on Thursday of founding a terrorist organisation and sentenced to two years in prison as part of a plea deal with German prosecutors.

Thaer Alhalah, 33, last week confessed to allegations that he participated in online discussions about setting up a training camp in Sudan.

He told the Schleswig-Holstein state court he had contact with other group members through online chat groups and telephone calls starting in April 2006.

Asked when the plans to start a camp in Sudan took form, Alhalah last week said: “They just developed.”

Speaking in Arabic through a translator, he told the court that jihad, or holy war, “for a Muslim is self defence”.

“If someone attacks my country or my belongings with violence, I am ready to defend my country and my belongings with weapons,” he said.

With the time Alhalah has already served in investigative custody, the sentence means that he can be released in April, at which time he will be deported to Jordan, prosecutor Matthias Krauss said. The legal maximum penalty was 10 years in prison.

Born in Kuwait in 1974, Alhalah moved to Jordan in 1990, then to Iraq in 1994 to attend university in Baghdad. He spent time living in Australia and went back and forth to Jordan.

Thaer Alhalah moved in 2005 to Sweden, where he was arrested last year on a warrant from Germany for his alleged involvement in forming the terrorist group.

His arrest stemmed from a larger investigation centred in Germany.—AP