- Plot to attack Christmas market - 17-year-old convicted
Due to a planned terrorist attack on a Christmas market in North Rhine-Westphalia, the Neuruppin Regional Court sentenced a 17-year-old from the Brandenburg town of Wittstock to a four-year youth sentence on Friday. The verdict was for conspiring to commit murder and for "publicly using the symbol of a banned organization," a court spokesman explained.
In the non-public trial, the charges of the public prosecutor's office were largely confirmed, the spokesman said. According to this, the accused Chechen had become increasingly radicalized and had agreed with a similarly convicted 15-year-old accomplice to obtain a truck and use it to kill as many people as possible on the Christmas market in Leverkusen-Opladen. "Those Christmas market visitors who would not have been immediately killed would have been stabbed with knives," the spokesman said.
The younger accomplice had already been sentenced to a four-year youth detention sentence by the Cologne Regional Court several weeks ago. Both were arrested at the end of last year. As they were minors at the time of the crime, the proceedings took place behind closed doors. The verdict of the Neuruppin Regional Court is not yet final. The accused and the public prosecutor's office can appeal against the verdict.
The accused's radicalization led to him supporting extremist ideologies, as evident in his agreement to carry out a terrorist attack. The banned organization's symbol was found to be publicly used during this planning process.
