Terror trial in Jena: Accusation: Plan of attack with at least ten deaths in Sweden

According to the indictment, they wanted to cause a bloodbath: According to the Federal Prosecutor General, two suspected Islamists are said to have planned to shoot at least ten people in an attack near the Swedish parliament in Stockholm. The two men, aged 30 and 23, are now sitting before the State Security Senate at the Jena Higher Regional Court. They are charged, among other things, with reasonable suspicion of membership or support of a terrorist organization.

Accompanied by many police officers and in handcuffs, the defendants from Afghanistan came into the courtroom. They were arrested in March of this year on suspicion of terrorism in the Gera area. Before they were taken into custody, both lived in the eastern Thuringian city. Representatives of the Swedish press were also present at the start of the trial.

Accusation: radicalization in Germany

The defendants are said to have come to Germany in 2015 and 2016 and became radicalized under the influence of jihadist propaganda, according to the representative of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office when reading out the indictment.

The older defendant, who is also accused of membership in an offshoot of the terrorist group Islamic State (IS), is said to have taken a corresponding oath in August 2023. He is then said to have been commissioned by the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISPK) branch to plan attacks in response to Koran burnings in Sweden. The Koran is considered holy scripture in Islam.

The 30-year-old is said to have previously collected donations of around 2,000 euros in Germany with the participation of his co-defendant. The money was intended for IS supporters imprisoned in northern Syria and was supposed to get there through an unknown contact person.

Weapons search on the Czech black market

Contact with the representatives of IS and the ISPK is said to have taken place via the messenger service Telegram. The 30-year-old informed his co-defendant and involved him in the planning and preparation of the attack. Both are said to have researched local events in Stockholm on the Internet.

After the search for possible weapons suppliers in Germany remained fruitless, the defendants are said to have also unsuccessfully tried the black market in the Czech Republic. On the way back from the Czech Republic, the two were checked by the federal police; among other things, their cell phones were confiscated and evaluated.

The two men were already in the focus of the responsible authorities, said the representative of the Federal Prosecutor General, Senior Public Prosecutor David Rademacher, on the sidelines of the hearing. He did not provide further details, such as where information about the defendants came from. He emphasized that, according to his findings, the two men had never actually been in Sweden.

The defendants have so far remained silent about the allegations

The defendants did not comment on the allegations at the start of the trial. However, the 30-year-old’s lawyer promised that his client would appear at the next hearing. The 23-year-old alleged accomplice will remain silent, his defense attorney said.

However, the older defendant provided information about himself. In broken German and supported by an interpreter, he said that he had a wife and three children between the ages of one and seven. He met the woman’s father in a mosque in Gera, who suggested marriage according to the Islamic rite.

In 2015 he fled Afghanistan and came to Germany. He had previously lived in the Netherlands for several years, but his asylum application there was rejected and he was deported. His current residence permit for Germany expired in September.

Particularly dangerous IS offshoot

According to the 2023 Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the ISPK is currently the strongest among the various regional branches of IS. It was founded in Afghanistan in 2015. In the past there had been repeated arrests in connection with the ISPK in Germany. The ISPK managed to rally a lot of supporters and comrades behind it, said the then President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, when presenting the report. The group calls for “major attacks” to be carried out.