The Vienna Criminal Court sentenced an Austrian man of Albanian descent to nine years in prison on Friday in connection with plans for two Islamist extremist attacks in Germany.

The case highlights the challenges posed by radicalized youth ready to commit acts of terror at home and in neighboring countries.

Read more: Report: 12-year-old planned two bomb attacks in German city of Ludwigshafen
• The man was found guilty of inciting a 12-year-old German-Iraqi boy to target a Christmas market in the city of Ludwigshafen. The child had tried but failed to detonate an explosive belt at the market in late 2016.
• During the trial, the 19-year-old admitted to being a member of Islamic State but downplayed his role in plotting the attacks.
• Reacting to his lengthy sentence, the turned defiant, saying: "I don't give a s***!" </s> VIENNA — An Austrian court has convicted a 19-year-old of involvement in plans for two Islamic extremist attacks in Germany, one of which was supposed to be carried out by a 12-year-old boy.

The Austria Press Agency reported that the defendant was convicted Friday in Vienna of attempted incitement to murder as a terrorist crime. He was given a nine-year sentence.

The Austrian of Albanian descent was accused of trying to incite a 12-year-old to attack a Christmas market in Ludwigshafen in 2016, and plotting an attack on the United States’ Ramstein Air Base along with a 16-year-old girl.

Defence lawyer Wolfgang Blaschitz said he is considering appealing.

The defendant testified he became a supporter of the Islamic State group following a previous jail term for robbery. He denied ordering any attacks. </s> The Vienna Criminal Court sentenced an Austrian man of Albanian descent to nine years in prison on Friday in connection with plans for two Islamist extremist attacks in Germany.

The case highlights the challenges posed by radicalized youth ready to commit acts of terror at home and in neighboring countries.

Read more: Report: 12-year-old planned two bomb attacks in German city of Ludwigshafen

What the court found

The man was found guilty of inciting a 12-year-old German-Iraqi boy to target a Christmas market in the city of Ludwigshafen. The child had tried but failed to detonate an explosive belt at the market in late 2016.

During the trial, the 19-year-old admitted to being a member of the "Islamic State," but downplayed his role in plotting the attacks.

Reacting to his lengthy sentence, he turned defiant, saying: "I don't give a s***!"

What else happened in court?

As well as plotting multiple murders, the defendant was found guilty of membership of a terrorist organization.

The jury found the 19-year-old had incited his wife — whom he married under Sharia Law — to attack the Ramstein Air Base.

The 17-year-old girl with Moroccan heritage said she had fallen in love and let herself be influenced.

The market plotter, now aged 14, tried to cover for his older friend. "The idea was mine," he told the court.

The boy said he had considered beheading a priest, attacking a bus, or a hospital.

Read more: German prisons: 150 dangerous Islamists need deradicalizing, say police

Germany's biggest Islamist trials Failed Bonn bomb The blue bag left on the platform at Bonn's central station in 2012 contained explosives that did not go off, but a city-wide manhunt unfolded. Marco G. was eventually arrested and charged with planting the bomb. Three others are charged with plotting to assassinate a politician from the far-right PRO-NRW party. Their group allegedly drew inspration from an Islamist movement in Uzbekistan.

Germany's biggest Islamist trials Frankfurt airport bus attack In March 2011, Arid Uka shot dead two US servicemen waiting for a bus at Frankfurt airport prior to deployment in Afghanistan. "This is indeed the first Islamic-motivated terror strike to have happened in Germany," the judge said, adding Uka had sought revenge for military operations in Afghanistan. Uka, born in Kosovo, acted alone and was sentenced to life in prison in February 2012.

Germany's biggest Islamist trials The Sauerland Cell The "Sauerland Cell" was a German cell of the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), a terrorist group on the Pakistani-Afghan border. The four German and Turkish men had planned large-scale bomb attacks against American targets in Germany from their base in the western region of the Sauerland. Arrested in September 2007, they were sentenced in March 2010 for up to 12 years.

Germany's biggest Islamist trials Sharia Police Sven Lau, a Salafist Muslim, was the man behind a well-known Islamist publicity stunt. In 2014, Lau led several men around the city of Wuppertal in orange security vests labeled "Sharia police." Acting as state authorities, they warned people visiting local clubs and bars to adhere to Sharia, or Islamic law. He is currently on trial for backing a terror group fighting in Syria.

Germany's biggest Islamist trials Big mouth Nils D., a Salafist from Dinslaken, joined the "Islamic State" in Syria in October 2013. He tracked down the group's deserters - armed with explosives and guns. He returned to Germany a year later, and boastful statements about his time in Syria eventually got him arrested. He confessed the names of other German Islamic extremists and was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail.

Germany's biggest Islamist trials "Biggest mistake of my life" On the final day of Harry S.'s July 2016 trial, he said "going to Syria was the biggest mistake of my life." The Bremen-born Muslim convert spent three months with "Islamic State" in Syria in 2015. He wanted out after civilians were murdered for a short recruitment film he helped make. He was sentenced to three years in jail for being part of a foreign terrorist organization.



What happens next?

Defense lawyer Wolfgang Blaschilz said he would consider appealing.

Blaschilz said the nine-year sentence was "way too much," and added that his client's deradicalization process was underway.

Read more: Preventing terrorism: What powers do German security forces have?

kw/sms (AP, dpa)

Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here. </s> LONDON (AP) — A teenage Iraqi asylum-seeker who told police he had been trained by the Islamic State group has been sentenced to at least 34 years in prison for bombing a London subway train and injuring 51 people.

A judge gave 18-year-old Ahmed Hassan Friday a life sentence with a requirement that he serve a minimum term of 34 years. A jury last week convicted Hassan of attempted murder in the September 2017 attack.

Judge Charles Haddon-Cave called Hassan “a dangerous and devious individual” and said he plotted the subway bombing with “ruthless determination” while pretending to be a model asylum-seeker.

The homemade bomb he placed on a packed London Underground train only partially detonated at Parsons Green station. Prosecutors said there probably would have been fatalities if the device had functioned properly. </s> LONDON (AP) - A Muslim convert has pleaded guilty to plotting a van attack on crowds in London’s busy Oxford Street shopping district.

During a court appearance Friday, Lewis Ludlow admitted preparing acts of terrorism and fundraising for the Islamic State group.

Prosecutors say the 26-year-old wrote down his attack plans, saying Oxford Street was an “ideal” target and “it is expected nearly 100 could be killed.” Police found the notes ripped up in a garbage bin.

Ludlow, from Rochester in southern England, was stopped at Heathrow Airport in February as he tried to board a flight to the Philippines, where prosecutors say he planned to join IS militants. They say he later plotted to attack London, but was arrested April 18.

Judge Nicholas Hilliard says Ludlow will be sentenced on Nov. 2. </s> In Egypt, a court sentenced 30 accused up to 25 years in prisons over terrorist charges and their affiliation with the Islamic State terror group.

The Cairo Criminal Court sentenced 18 defendants to 25 years, eight to 15 years and four others to 10 years for joining the terror outfit, possessing explosives and attempting to blow up a church in the seaside province of Alexandria.

The prosecution also charged the accused for targeting vital state institutions and receiving training with IS members in war-torn Syria and Libya. </s> A German couple have been jailed for selling their 9-year-old son to paedophiles for sex on the dark web.

The 48-year-old woman and her 39-year-old partner were also convicted of repeatedly raping the boy, now 10, and filming the abuse.

They were both sentenced to 12 years in prison in a case that has horrified the country.

The sickening abuse lasted for more than two years, the Freiburg state court heard this week.

A 33-year-old Spanish man who was offered the boy for sex by his mother was found guilty of repeatedly raping him.

The man, whose name wasn’t released for German privacy reasons, was sentenced to ten years in prison and fined €18,000 euros (£16,080).

He admitted paying the woman and her partner €10,000 euros (£8,930) to rape the boy multiple times in the town of Staufen in southern Germany.

Police arrested the couple last year after being tipped off by an anonymous person.

Three German men and one Swiss citizen have already been convicted in separate trials.

The Freiburg state court ruled that the 39-year-old man must remain in preventive custody after serving his sentence. </s> A Maryland man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for terrorism financing and conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State.

The U.S. Department of Justice says Mohamed Elshinawy of the Edgewater suburb pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and received $8,700 to carry out a future attack in the United States.

The Pittsburgh-born Elshinawy was a 7-Eleven employee and newspaper deliveryman when he came on the FBI's radar.

Investigators say much of the money he received came from a United Kingdom-based electronics company run by Siful Sujan, an ISIS hacker who coordinated anti-surveillance technology and weapons development and was killed in December 2015 airstrikes.

Elshinawy was sentenced Friday by U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander. The 32-year-old faces 15 years of supervised release. </s> BERLIN (AP) - Germany is preparing to deport a Moroccan man convicted in Hamburg of helping three of the Sept. 11 attackers as they got ready to strike New York and Washington.

Mounir el-Motassadeq was convicted in 2006 of membership in a terrorist organization and accessory to murder for his part in the plot.

The 44-year-old was sentenced to the maximum 15 years but received credit for time served after his November 2001 arrest.

Hamburg Interior Ministry spokesman Frank Reschreiter said that el-Motassadeq "will leave the country soon," but wouldn't specify exactly when he'd be returned to Morocco, saying authorities didn't want to jeopardize the procedure.

He said that "all the necessary procedural steps for this have been ticked off according to plan."

FILE - In this Jan. 8, 2007 file picture Moroccan Mounir El Motassadeq waits prior his trial at a court in Hamburg, northern Germany, The Moroccan man has been sentenced to a 15-year prison sentence in Germany for helping three of the suicide pilots in the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. (AP Photo/Fabian Bimmer, Pool)
An Islamic State member is sentenced in Vienna to nine years in prison, among others for instigating a 12-year-old boy to commit a Christmas market bombing in Ludwigshafen, Germany.