BERLIN (AP) — A German court convicted a 15-year-old boy Friday of plotting an Islamic extremist attack at a Christmas market and sentenced him to four years in prison.
The Cologne state court said the boy was found guilty of conspiracy to murder and disturbing the public peace by intimidation, according to German news agency DPA. The hearing was held in private under juvenile law and the defendant’s name was not made public in line with German privacy rules.
The boy was detained near Cologne in November and a court found he had been radicalised last autumn and within weeks had agreed with a 16-year-old acquaintance to attack the Leverkusen Christmas market.
The plan was for the defendant to drive into the market in a rented truck and kill as many visitors as possible, while an accomplice filmed the attack, the court said. He also posted a video to a chat group warning of attacks on “infidels”, with the Islamic State symbol in the background, the ruling said.
There has been no formal plea in the German judicial system, but the court said the 15-year-old had admitted to the charges.
The trial of the co-defendants, who are also charged with conspiracy to murder, is scheduled to begin on July 17 in Neuruppin, near Berlin in eastern Germany.
