Attorney General files charges against terrorist suspects
Created: 03/25/2022, 12:05 p.m
A statue of Lady Justice stands holding scales and sword.
© Arne Dedert/dpa/symbol picture
The federal prosecutor's office has brought charges against a suspected Islamist who is said to have planned a major terrorist attack in the Hamburg area.
The process is to take place at the Hamburg Higher Regional Court, as the Karlsruhe authority announced on Friday.
The indictment still has to be approved there.
Karlsruhe – The German-Moroccan has been in custody since the end of August.
However, the Hamburg security authorities only informed the public about the suspicion of terrorism in December.
A little later, the Attorney General took over the investigation against the then 20-year-old - because of the special importance of the case.
At the time, the German press agency learned that the preparations were well advanced.
The young man wanted to kill and injure as many people as possible, and the bomb-making materials found on him were sufficient to have a devastating effect.
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As the federal prosecutor has now announced, the attack should have taken place around the 20th anniversary of the Islamist terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in the USA.
The man wanted to orientate himself on the actions of the Chechen brothers, who had committed an attack on the marathon in Boston in 2013.
The suspect had come across undercover investigators while trying to buy a hand grenade and a semi-automatic firearm on the Darknet.
According to the security authorities, large quantities of chemicals and several hundred metal nuts and bolts were found on him.
He is said to have been planning the attack since January 2021 at the latest.
He is charged as an adolescent.
dpa