The leader of a prominent Swiss Islamic group and two other top members have been charged over alleged al-Qaida propaganda videos posted on YouTube.

Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber's office alleges the three members of the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (ICCS) violated Swiss laws banning al-Qaida, Islamic State and associated radical groups.

His office and federal police have opened about 60 cases linked to alleged 'jihadi-motivated terrorism,' mostly involving propaganda.

The indictments target ICCS President Nicolas Blancho, the group's cultural chief Naim Chernim and spokesman Abdel Azziz Qaasim Illi.

Nicolas Blancho, President of ICCS, attends a press conference of the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland in Bern in 2015

Blancho and Illi are both Swiss citizens while Chernim is a German citizen and all remain free.

'Our reaction is the same it has always been - it is a politically motivated act by the state prosecutor. They know their case is weak,' Illi said from Bangladesh.

Referring to ICCS, he added: 'They are trying to defame the famous Islamic organization.'

Blancho is pictured in 2009 addressing demonstrators who were gathered to protest against the ban on mosque minarets in Switzerland

Naim Cherni is one of the three men charged with making jihadist propaganda videos

Abdel Azziz Qaasim Illi, right, spokesman for the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland has also been charged

Illi said Lauber's office had tried and failed to have YouTube remove the videos.

The case was built around an interview that Cherni conducted in Syria in 2015 with Abdullah al-Muhaysini.

The Saudi militant has been linked to an umbrella organization known as Jaish al-Fatah, or Army of Conquest, which is led by an al-Qaida affiliate.

Illi called him a 'rebel leader' and said links to al-Qaida weren't confirmed.

In a statement, the attorney general's office said the videos were supportive of al-Qaida and had been 'actively promoted via social media and at a public event' by all three suspects.

The indictment comes nearly two years after Lauber's office announced an investigation of what was then an unspecified German citizen accused of 'having presented his journey to embattled regions of Syria in a video for propaganda purposes, without having explicitly distanced himself from al-Qaida activities in Syria.'