Moroccan ISIS kickboxer who was recorded saying he'd attack the Vatican is jailed along with his wife

A Moroccan kickboxer who was recorded saying he would attack the Vatican for ISIS has been jailed along with his wife.

Italian citizen Abderrahim Moutaharrik and his wife Salma Bencharki were arrested in April on suspicion of being linked to ISIS.

Police wiretapped their conversations and concluded that they were about to decamp to Syria with their two children, aged two and four. 

Moutaharrik was recorded saying he would be willing to mount an attack on the Vatican, which IS propagandists have regularly threatened to do.

He was given a six-year prison term while his wife was



sentenced to five years. 

His lawyer claimed after the sentencing that he his client never said he would attack the Vatican and that he intended to appeal his conviction.

Two other people, Abderrahmane Khachia and Wafa Koraichi, were jailed after also being convicted of links to international terrorism.

Khachia's brother, Oussama Khachia, was expelled from Italy in January 2015 for promoting IS and reportedly died in Syria later that year.

Koraichi is the sister of Mohammed Koraichi, a Moroccan who reportedly took his Italian wife and their three children to join IS in the Middle East.