On Friday, the Neuruppin district court sentenced a 17-year-old from Wittstock in Brandenburg to a juvenile sentence of four years for a planned terrorist attack on a Christmas market in North Rhine-Westphalia. The sentence was handed down for conspiracy to commit murder and for “publicly using the logo of an association subject to an activity ban”, explained a spokesperson for the court. In the non-public main hearing, the allegations made by the public prosecutor general’s office were essentially confirmed, the spokesperson explained. According to this, the accused Chechen had become increasingly radicalised and had agreed with a 15-year-old accomplice, who was also convicted, to procure a truck and use it to kill as many people as possible at the Christmas market in Leverkusen-Opladen. “Those Christmas market visitors who were not killed immediately would have been stabbed with knives afterwards,” the spokesman said.
The younger accomplice had already been sentenced to four years’ imprisonment by the Cologne Regional Court weeks ago for the planned offence. Both had been arrested at the end of last year. As they were minors at the time of the offence, the hearings were held in camera. The judgement of the district court in Neuruppin is not final. The accused and the public prosecutor’s office can appeal against the judgement.
Weihnachtsmarkt: 17-jähriger Tschetschene plante Anschlag – Jugendstrafe – WELT