(Deutsche Welle) In 2023, a 15- and a 17-year-old plotted to attack a Christmas market in Leverkusen (North Rhine-Westphalia). In online chats, the two supporters of the “Islamic State” (IS), considered a terrorist organization by German domestic intelligence, plotted to kill as many people as possible by driving a truck into the crowd of revellers. Two days before the planned attack, the teenagers were arrested after police had become aware of their online chats. The minors were sentenced to four years in prison in 2024.
Cases like this are increasingly worrying German security authorities. The Federal Criminal Police (BKA) has for years been recording an increase in violent crime. The number of juvenile suspects under the age of 18 has increased by almost a third since 2019, and the number of suspects under the age of 14 has even risen by two-thirds in the same period.
