She is accused of sympathizing with the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS) and of planning a knife attack against “infidels” at Graz Stadthalle”>Jakominiplatz in Graz. The girl is also said to have chatted with a stranger about building a bomb for an attack. The delicate 14-year-old with two pigtails and glasses appeared anything but radical in court. When the prosecutor lists all the things the girl is accused of, it seems difficult to reconcile them with the defendant’s personality.
More on the topic
Attack plans in Europe have increased fivefold since the Hamas attack
“She had a radical religious attitude and decided before she was 14 to leave the country and take part in the IS fighting,” said the prosecutor. A chat revealed that she had discussed an attack on Jakominiplatz with a girl in Germany. The person she spoke to was arrested and the German authorities informed the Austrian police.
Meanwhile, the 14-year-old had contact with an unknown man who called himself “Osman”. He advised against the knife attack because the girl had no fighting experience. She asked him where she could order an explosive belt for an attack. He sent her instructions on how to make a bomb, which, according to the court expert, would have worked.
During a house search, a video was also found in which the girl – wrapped in a niqab – swore loyalty to the IS leader in Arabic.
“Everything that the prosecution says happened before her 14th birthday, when she was not yet of criminal responsibility,” emphasized the defense attorney. The charges only cover the few days after the teenagers’ 14th birthday in May this year. “She has changed in prison and will never do anything like that again,” the lawyer was convinced.
“I don’t feel guilty, but I downloaded the pictures and videos,” explained the 14-year-old. “Then why don’t you feel guilty,” the judge wanted to know. “I’m not in any IS group and it’s not true that I wanted to build a bomb,” the girl replied. “But you wrote it,” the chairwoman reproached her. “That was five months ago,” was the answer.
“She retreated into the virtual world because she had no one else,” the defense attorney tried to explain. In this world she had contacts with IS supporters; the defendant did not deny that at all. “I wanted true friends who would accept me as I am, and the people from ISIS have that.”
