Monday November 25, 2024

Teenage boy sentenced in Germany over Christmas market attack plan

Published : 02 Aug 2024, 19:12

  DF News Desk
Police officers stand next to their emergency vehicles. File Photo: Friso Gentsch/dpa.

A boy only 17-year-old from northern Germany was sentenced to four years in a juvenile detention facility for his part in a planned attack on a Christmas market, a court spokesman said on Friday, reported dpa.

He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, a spokesman for the Neuruppin district court announced.

In the closed main hearing, the accusations of the public prosecutor general's office were essentially confirmed, the spokesman said.

The accused, a Chechen, had become increasingly radicalized and had agreed with a 15-year-old accomplice to procure a truck and use it to kill as many people as possible at the Christmas market in Leverkusen-Opladen in western Germany.

The younger accomplice was previously sentenced to four years' imprisonment by the Cologne district court for his part in the planned attack.

They were both arrested at the end of last year. As they were minors at the time of the offence, the hearings were held in camera.

The judgment of the district court in Neuruppin is not final as the defendant and the public prosecutor's office can launch appeals.