BERLIN – A radicalized 18-year-old was convicted Thursday of attempted murder for throwing two Molotov cocktails into the entrance of a German shopping mall.
The Hannover state court sentenced the German citizen, identified only as Saleh S. in line with privacy rules, to eight years in prison for throwing the homemade firebombs into the mall in Hannover in February 2016, news agency dpa reported.
They were filled with diesel fuel that didn't ignite. The Molotov cocktails glanced off two people, but nobody was hurt and no damage was caused. The defendant was tried as a juvenile behind closed doors.
He is the brother of a 16-year-old girl, Safia S., who was convicted in January of stabbing and wounding a police officer at the behest of the Islamic State group.
In a separate case, German authorities said Thursday that they arrested a Syrian man suspected of acting as a liaison between the IS group's Aamaq news agency and potential attackers.
Federal prosecutors said the 23-year-old, identified only as Mohammed G. in line with privacy rules, was arrested Wednesday. He is accused of membership in a terrorist organization.
The suspect arrived in Germany in September 2015. Prosecutors said he was in contact via social media with a person suspected in an arson attack on a Shiite community center in Sweden in October 2016, and demanded a personal claim of responsibility the day after that attack.
Aamaq didn't want to report the attack without a claim as evidence, prosecutors said. IS then published a claim of responsibility in its Al-Naba newsletter.
The suspect also allegedly spread IS propaganda in online chat groups.
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