North Rhine-Westphalia: Trial against suspected terror student in Essen starts

Düsseldorf/Essen (dpa/lnw) - After the foiled terrorist attack on a high school in Essen, the trial against a right-wing student is scheduled to start next week.

North Rhine-Westphalia: Trial against suspected terror student in Essen starts

Düsseldorf/Essen (dpa/lnw) - After the foiled terrorist attack on a high school in Essen, the trial against a right-wing student is scheduled to start next week. This was announced by a spokeswoman for the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court on Monday. Accordingly, the process begins on December 9, ten days of negotiations are planned.

Since the accused student was a minor at the time of the crime, the public is likely to be excluded. The investigators assume that the then 16-year-old wanted to cause a bloodbath on May 13 of this year at Essen's Don Bosco High School. The day before, he had been arrested after a classmate had pointed this out to him at his parents' home.

The federal prosecutor's office had taken over the investigation because of the "special importance" of the case. "Teachers and a large number of students should have been killed". The federal prosecutor accuses the 17-year-old of preparing a terrorist attack, financing terrorism and violating the Weapons and Explosives Act.

A decision by the Federal Court of Justice in August states: "The accused's established racist attitude, his massive readiness to use violence and the effort he has put into the crime over several years speak to a large extent for his harmful tendencies and the seriousness of the guilt."

Among other things, police officers had found crossbows, knives, machetes, air pressure pistols and materials for pipe bombs on the German - "everything that is essential for the construction of an explosive device (...)". The youth worked out the details of the planned "massacre" in a diary and a "manifesto".

He wrote extensive instructions for imitators and recorded video messages. In prison, he said he spoke "openly to staff about his attack plan, his murderous fantasies, his hatred of foreigners" and his admiration for earlier right-wing extremist assassins and "has so far not refrained from doing so."