14-year-old ‘terrorist’ jailed

Sankt-Poelten (Austria): A 14-year-old Austrian schoolboy was convicted on Tuesday of planning to bomb a Vienna train station in the name of the Islamic State group and sentenced to eight months behind bars. The teenager of Turkish origin was found guilty of belonging to a “terrorist” organisation and given an additional suspended jail sentence of 16 months by a court in his hometown of Sankt-Poelten.

According to the chargesheet, the teenager, who emigrated from Turkey in 2007, wanted to carry out the attack before travelling to join “holy war” in Syria alongside the Islamic State group. Police had said at the time of his arrest in October 2014 that the boy made “concrete enquiries about buying ingredients” for a bomb and “planned to explode the devices in public places, such as the Vienna Westbahnhof,” a major train station.

His lawyer Rudolf Mayer said his client — who he said grew up “without a father” and who turns 15 in the coming days — had only been “playing with the idea” of making a bomb. Police found violent images and IS propaganda on the teen’s computer, mobile phone and games console. The public prosecutor told the court that the defendant expressed “no feelings of guilt”. He listened in silence to opening comments from the prosecution.