Düsseldorf, Jan 18,(dpa/GNA) – A teenager has been charged in Germany accused of planning an attack on a synagogue in September last year.
The now 17-year-old was captured during a large police operation in the city of Hagen, south of Dortmund in western Germany, on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur.
He has been charged with a serious act of violence endangering the state, the public prosecutor’s office in Düsseldorf told dpa.
The Syrian, who was 16 years old at the time he was detained, was arrested in mid-September and has since been in police custody.
According to earlier information from the investigators, the suspect had been in contact with a suspected Islamic State member via the messenger service Telegram.
He allegedly asked and received information on how to make a bomb.
Local media have reported that the prosecutors have partly based their case on the Telegram messages exchanged between the two.
More details are expected to be revealed by the attorney general’s office later on Tuesday.
The youth’s defence lawyer told the Bild newspaper: “We will explain and specify in the trial that at no time was an attack planned.”
GNA