Germany arrests three teenagers on suspicion of ‘terror attack’ plot

Prosecutors say trio believed to have been planning ‘murder, manslaughter’ and ‘act of violence endangering the state’.

Police in Germany have arrested three teenagers on suspicion of planning a terror attack, according to prosecutors.

Two girls aged 15 and 16 and a 15-year-old boy were arrested as they were “strongly suspected of planning an Islamist-motivated terror attack and of having committed to carrying it out”, prosecutors said in a statement on Friday.

The three teenagers were from the Dusseldorf region in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia and are believed to have been planning crimes of “murder and manslaughter”, as well as preparing “a serious act of violence endangering the state”, according to the statement.

The state’s Central Office for the Prosecution of Terrorism sought an arrest warrant for the teenagers over the Easter holiday.

They had formed a chat group and had not set a date or place for the attack, but investigators said they “certainly saw the danger”.