Status: 08.07.2022 12:44 p.m
He himself had prepared a terrorist attack on the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks: a 21-year-old Islamist was sentenced to eight years in prison by the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court on Friday.
The court saw it as proven that the accused wanted to carry out a terrorist attack out of “fanatical hatred of alleged infidels”. The presiding judge described the 21-year-old, who had shown no remorse, as a “ticking time bomb” and convicted him of preparing an act of violence that endangered the state and of violating the War Weapons Control and Weapons Act.
The attack would have had “devastating consequences”.
According to the judge, the planned attack would have had devastating consequences with many dead and injured in Hamburg. With the decision, the court went beyond the demand of the federal prosecutor had applied for a sentence of seven years in prison. The defender had spoken out in favor of a youth penalty of a maximum of three years.
Accused caught buying gun
According to the conviction of the federal prosecutor, the defendant wanted to build an explosive device based on the example of the attack on the Boston marathon on April 15, 2013. For this he had bought large quantities of chemicals and several hundred nuts and bolts. When he bought a Makarov pistol with 50 rounds of ammunition and a hand grenade, he came across an undercover police officer. When the weapons were handed over as agreed on August 26, 2021 in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant on Kieler Straße in the Stellingen district, the young man was arrested by special forces.
Case became known in December 2021
In December 2021, the Hamburg police and general public prosecutor’s office provided information about the investigation for the first time. The 21-year-old was the son of an Islamist who had long been known to the Hamburg authorities, said the head of the state security department at the State Criminal Police Office. The Moroccan father was jointly responsible for the Al-Quds Mosque, where the members of the Hamburg terror cell around Mohammed Atta met before the attacks of September 11, 2001.
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