Gurdwara blast in Germany: Three radicalised teens sentenced

Three radicalised German-born teens were on Tuesday sentenced to up to seven years in juvenile detention for carrying out a “religiously motivated” bomb attack on a gurdwara that left a Sikh priest injured.

Three radicalised German-born teens were on Tuesday sentenced to up to seven years in juvenile detention for carrying out a “religiously motivated” bomb attack on a gurdwara that left a Sikh priest injured.

The gurdwara in Essen that was attacked. (AFP)

The judge ruled that the teens should serve sentences of seven years, six years and nine months, and six years in a juvenile detention centre, a court spokesman said.

Prosecutors had argued that the teens, Yusuf T, Mohamed B and Tolga I, who were 16 at the time of the act, had attacked the Sikh temple in Essen out of radical Islamist motivations to kill “non-believers”. The court agreed that their motive had been hate for other religions, it said. The trial uncovered no evidence of the three having direct contact with terror group ISIS.

Two convicts set off a homemade bomb blast after a wedding party on April 16, 2016, at Gurdwara Nanaksar, wounding three people, including one Sikh priest. The bomb, crafted from a fire extinguisher packed with explosive chemicals, also destroyed the doors of the gurdwara. The third was found guilty of conspiring to murder for participating in the planning and preparation of the attack, and was sentenced to six years in youth detention.