A 15-year-old boy has been sentenced to four years in jail for planning an Islamist attack on a Christmas market in the German city of Leverkusen.
The teenager wanted to rent a truck and 'kill as many people as possible' by ramming it into the traditional market,a court in Cologne has revealed.
The boy had started to become 'radicalised' in autumn 2023,the court said,and evidence against him included a video in a chat group announcing his plans for an attack on 'infidels' with a recognisable Islamist symbol in the background.
The boy had planned the attack along with another teenager who was supposed to film it and share the video,the court said.
The 16-year-old from Brandenburg,the state that surrounds Berlin,will stand trial in a different court from July.
In another case involving teenagers,two boys and two girls aged 15 to 16 were arrested at Easter this year on suspicion of planning an Islamist attack in the same region of western Germany.
Herbert Reul,interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state,said the young age of the suspects left him 'speechless',adding that it posed a 'huge challenge for society as a whole'.
Germany's biggest-selling daily Bild reported that the four youths were allegedly planning to carry out Molotov cocktail and knife attacks in the name of the Islamic State group.
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