A court in the city of Duesseldorf on Thursday, March 4, jailed for Muslims over what is being described as a 9/11-styled attacks against US military and civilian targets in Germany.
"You were planning a monstrous bloodbath that would have killed an unfathomable number of people," Judge Ottmar Breidling said at the conclusion of the 10-month trial.
The court convicted the men of belonging to a foreign terrorist organisation and sentenced them to between five and 12 years in jail.
Fritz Gelowicz and Daniel Schneider, both German converts, each received a 12-year jail term.
Adem Yilmaz, a Turkish citizen, got 11 years while Atilla Selek, a German of Turkish origin, was given five years for a supporting role in the plot.
Schneider was also convicted of attempted murder for grabbing the handgun from a police officer while being captured and firing off a shot. No one was wounded.
After the biggest criminal surveillance operation in post-war Germany, police using US and German intelligence caught three of the suspects red-handed, mixing chemicals to make some 410 kilograms of explosives.
The fourth suspect, Selek, was arrested soon after in Turkey.
Proposed targets included pubs and nightclubs in several German cities frequented by Americans as well as US airbases and diplomatic facilities.
Prosecutors said the suspects wanted to kill Americans, but also punish Germany for its military involvement in Afghanistan.
Germany has more than 4,000 troops in the war-ravaged country serving under NATO command.
Germany's 9/11
The prosecutor said the four had plotted to carry out "an extraordinarily dangerous and sweeping attack plot" with visions of "mounting a second September 11, 2001".
"If the accused had managed to do what they planned, it would have led to a monstrous bloodbath, primarily among US army personnel and also civilians."
They had explosives 100 times the amount used in the 2005 London bombings that killed more than 50 people, prosecutors said.
Judge Breidling described the terror plot as the biggest in Germany's post-war history.
"You were blinded by a strange, hate-filled notion of jihad and you turned yourselves into angels of death in the name of Islam."
The so-called Sauerland cell, named after the region where three were captured, admitted membership in a terrorist organisation, plotting murder and conspiring for an explosives attack.
The group said it was acting on behalf of the Islamic Jihad Union, a militant group with ties to Al-Qaeda that is believed to have set up training camps along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
But Gelowicz, Schneider and Selek had renounced extremism and described their actions as a "mistake".
"You were planning a monstrous bloodbath that would have killed an unfathomable number of people," Judge Ottmar Breidling said at the conclusion of the 10-month trial.
The court convicted the men of belonging to a foreign terrorist organisation and sentenced them to between five and 12 years in jail.
Fritz Gelowicz and Daniel Schneider, both German converts, each received a 12-year jail term.
Adem Yilmaz, a Turkish citizen, got 11 years while Atilla Selek, a German of Turkish origin, was given five years for a supporting role in the plot.
Schneider was also convicted of attempted murder for grabbing the handgun from a police officer while being captured and firing off a shot. No one was wounded.
After the biggest criminal surveillance operation in post-war Germany, police using US and German intelligence caught three of the suspects red-handed, mixing chemicals to make some 410 kilograms of explosives.
The fourth suspect, Selek, was arrested soon after in Turkey.
Proposed targets included pubs and nightclubs in several German cities frequented by Americans as well as US airbases and diplomatic facilities.
Prosecutors said the suspects wanted to kill Americans, but also punish Germany for its military involvement in Afghanistan.
Germany has more than 4,000 troops in the war-ravaged country serving under NATO command.
Germany's 9/11
The prosecutor said the four had plotted to carry out "an extraordinarily dangerous and sweeping attack plot" with visions of "mounting a second September 11, 2001".
"If the accused had managed to do what they planned, it would have led to a monstrous bloodbath, primarily among US army personnel and also civilians."
They had explosives 100 times the amount used in the 2005 London bombings that killed more than 50 people, prosecutors said.
Judge Breidling described the terror plot as the biggest in Germany's post-war history.
"You were blinded by a strange, hate-filled notion of jihad and you turned yourselves into angels of death in the name of Islam."
The so-called Sauerland cell, named after the region where three were captured, admitted membership in a terrorist organisation, plotting murder and conspiring for an explosives attack.
The group said it was acting on behalf of the Islamic Jihad Union, a militant group with ties to Al-Qaeda that is believed to have set up training camps along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
But Gelowicz, Schneider and Selek had renounced extremism and described their actions as a "mistake".
