While most teens will be happy enough using their PlayStation for its intended purpose, one boy in Austria was using his for more nefarious purposes. Cops were alerted to the 14-year-old boy’s activities last year, and following examination of his gaming machine discovered he’d been using it to download bomb-making information.
The youngster, reportedly a Turkish national, was this week handed a two-year sentence by a Vienna court after pleading guilty to terrorism charges, Reuters reported. Sixteen months of the sentence are suspended, while the rest will be spent at a juvenile detention center.
Prosecutors said that besides the bomb-making information, data recovered from the gaming console showed the boy had been in touch with militants supporting the Syria- and Iraq-based organization commonly known as Islamic State.
The court heard that the youth had a plan to set off homemade bombs in locations inside Austria. At the time of his arrest in October last year, cops said the teen had made “concrete enquiries about buying ingredients” for an explosive device and “planned to explode the devices in public places, such as the Vienna Westbahnhof,” one of the capital city’s major train hubs.
The youngster’s defense attorney, Rudolf Mayer, claimed the boy had only been “playing with the idea” of building a bomb, but the court disagreed and handed him a jail term.
