Mona S, a 21-year-old Austrian, and her 22-year-old Egyptian-born husband Mohamed M, were found guilty of "belonging to a terrorist organisation" with links to Al-Qaeda, trying to blackmail the Austrian government and inciting a crime.

The main defendant, Mohamed M., was given a four-year term while his wife was sentenced to 22 months in prison.

Mona S. had translated the video, which was signed "Global Islamic Media Front", into German. It contained threats to target the European Football Championships, which Austria is hosting with Switzerland in June, as well as Austrian and foreign politicians.

Austrian detectives hunting the authors of the file traced the computers that were used by the accused. The computers were used to access the Ministry of Defence homepage, from which they allegedly downloaded the photos that were found on the video.

The video was posted in March last year in an attempt to force Austria and Germany to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan.

The Vienna court had excluded the young Muslim woman from the opening of her trial, after she refused to take off her black head-to-toe veil.

On arrival in the court she declared that "there are too many men here."

The presiding judge ordered she be escorted out of the courtroom, arguing that the jury could not judge her credibility without seeing her entire face.

Mohamed M., for his part, said around 100 people were involved in an Internet forum of the Front, which he said was "the sole media organisation which tells the truth."

But he admitted to lying in chat discussions on the site by passing off his father as a "retired terrorist" and claiming an old football injury to be a battle scar from Iraq.

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