A judge has handed a 16-year-old French girl preliminary terrorism charges* for allegedly supporting the Islamic State group and trying to perpetrate an attack, prosecutors have said, reports The Guardian.
The girl was using a social media app to spread calls by Isis to commit violent acts, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on Monday.
The judge charged* the teenager with taking part in a “criminal terrorist association” and “inciting to commit terrorist acts through an online communication medium”. She has been placed in custody.
The investigators said the girl was “extremely radicalised” and was the administrator of a chat group dedicated to Isis propaganda on the Telegram app, which has been used by suspected jihadis to communicate, deputy prosecutor Laure Vermeersch said.
Vermeersch said no specific targets had been mentioned by the teenager, who had no prior criminal history. Her name wasn’t released.
Investigators are now trying to trace other participants of the chat group and know whether the girl had possible accomplices in her alleged attack plot or in spreading Isis propaganda.
Read more of this report from The Guardian.
*Editor's note: Under a change to the French legal system introduced in 1993, a magistrate can decide a suspect should be 'placed under investigation' (mise en examen), which is a status one step short of being charged (inculpé), if there is 'serious or concordant' evidence that they committed a crime. Some English-language media describe this status, peculiar to French criminal law, as that of being charged. In fact, it is only at the end of an investigation that a decision can be made to bring charges, in which case the accused is automatically sent for trial.