Poison attack planned: Imprisonment and preventive detention
Eleven months after a spectacular anti-terrorist operation in Castrop-Rauxel, the Dortmund district court has handed down its verdict against a 26-year-old Iranian man. The defendant was sentenced to four years in prison followed by preventive detention. "He was determined to carry out a terrorist attack with poisonous substances," said presiding judge Dirk Kienitz in his sentencing statement.
The young man had been arrested together with his brother in January following a tip-off from an intelligence service. Chats with several people said to be close to the Islamic State had drawn the attention of terror investigators to the Iranian.
During the trial, it emerged that the man had actually received instructions on how to produce the poisonous substances ricin and cyanide. He had also already started to procure the necessary ingredients. In the chats, it was stated in several places that the attack was to be carried out on New Year's Eve 2022. However, the 26-year-old did not have all the ingredients together by that day.
"Instructions unusable", but defendant did not know that
However, in the judges' view, there was never any real danger. "The instructions were unusable", it said in the grounds for the verdict. This was confirmed by several experts.
According to the judges, the defendant did not know this, but believed until the end that he could produce the toxic substances. Therefore, he had to be seen as a danger to the general public, said the presiding judge. Placement in preventive detention after imprisonment was absolutely necessary to protect the public. The man's brother is no longer under investigation.
The verdict is not yet final. The defendant has the option of lodging an appeal.
The plans for the terrorist attack involved the use of poisonous substances like ricin and cyanide, which the Iranian defendant had received instructions onproducing. Despite the instructions being deemed unusable by experts, the defendant continued to believe he could create these toxic substances, thereby posing a risk to public safety.
Source: www.dpa.com
