By David Sophrin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

DUSSELDORF, Germany – Four members of a German terrorist cell were convicted for a foiled terrorist plot target United States soldiers and military installations that they had attempted to carry out in 2007.

German citizens Fritz Gelowicz, Daniel Schneider and Attila Selek were arrested, along with Adem Yilmaz of Turkey, in 2007.  Found in their possession at the time of arrest were military detonators and large quantities of hydrogen peroxide.  The cell had been under investigation by German law enforcement authorities for approximately nine months prior to their arrest.  It was their intention to target the U.S. Air Force base in Germany, Ramstein Air Base, along with a number of regional airports and restaurants.  Each defendant had trained at an Al Qaeda camp in northern Pakistan.  They also had joined the Islamic Jihad Union in 2006.

The defendants confessed to the charges leveled against them last year.  Gelowicz and Schneider were sentenced to twelve years in prison.  Yilmaz was given an eleven year sentence, while Selek was sentenced to five years.  Schneider was also was convicted for the attempted murder of one of the police officers who participated in the cell’s arrest.

Judge Ottmar Breidling, who handed down the sentences, commented that the four defendants wanted to carry out a “second September 11th”.  He described the plot as having the potential to have been a “monstrous bloodbath, designed to kill at least 150 people, mostly Americans.”

This failed plot constituted the first radical Islamic plot to be organized and prepared by German citizens.

For more information, please see:

CNN – 4 convicted over foiled German terror plot – 4 March 2010

THE NEW YORK TIMES – Germany Sentences 4 in Terror Case – 4 March 2010

VOICE OF AMERICA – 4 Muslims Convicted in Germany – 4 March 2010

UPI – Germany convicts home-grown militants – 4 March 2010