German teens on trial for attack at Sikh wedding
Thursday, 08/12/2016
http://epaper.dailypostindia.com/Details.aspx?id=169436&boxid=59138&uid=&dat=2016-12-08
Berlin: Three teenage boys went on trial in Germany on Wednesday, accused of a jihadist bomb attack on an Indian wedding that left a Sikh priest badly wounded.
The three extremists, all 16 at the time, allegedly set off a home-made bomb in April outside a prayer hall where a Sikh wedding was taking place, also leaving two others with lesser injuries.
The youths, who were born in Germany, had met on social media after being radicalised by ultra-extreme Salafist Muslims, and got together to commit the attack in the western city of Essen.
Prosecutors charge they had sought to kill “non-believers” with a device they had built from a fire extinguisher shell and chemicals ordered from online shopping site Amazon.
At the trial, which is being held at a juvenile court in Essen without media access, all three face charges including attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm.
Neriman Yaman, mother of one of the accused, the now 17-year-old Yusuf, has described her torment as she watched her young son become radicalised in the book “My Son, the
Salafist”.
The Turkish-born author describes how she sought help from mosques and state authorities as her son from age 14 turned to a fundamentalist version of Islam. She says Yusuf started speaking in verses, watched Arabic-language preachers online, joined a group that handed out Korans on the street, and married a teenage girl wearing a burqa.
