Germany imprisons Syrian who ‘made up’ attack plot

FRANKFURT, Germany — A German court on Wednesday sentences a Syrian refugee to seven years in prison for fighting with the Islamic State jihadist group, but found that he had lied about being part of a terror cell planning an attack in Duesseldorf.

Saleh A. had presented himself to police in Paris in 2016, claiming to be a part of an IS “sleeper cell” planning a gun and suicide bomb assault in the old town center of the western German city of Duesseldorf.

He was then extradited to Germany in September 2016 and remanded in custody.

But during his trial he admitted to lying about the involvement of two alleged co-plotters, and prosecutors came to the conclusion that he had invented the whole terror plot story.

The two suspects, an Algerian and a Jordanian, were cleared of the plot charges and released from custody last year — after spending some 18 months in pre-trial detention.

— AFP