A French court on Monday remanded to custody a 16-year-old girl charged with plotting a jihadist attack, The Local reported. The judge charged the girl with participating in a “criminal terrorist association” and “inciting to commit terrorist acts through an online communication medium.”
The “highly radicalized” teen was group administrator on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.
“She relayed numerous Islamic State group propaganda messages calling for attacks, and she also expressed her own intention of taking action,” a source close to the investigation told The Local. Intelligence services picked up on one of her “very worrying” messages on Telegram.
The girl, who doesn’t have a criminal record, was picked up in a police anti-terror sweep in the suburb of Melun outside Paris.
The security forces then raided her family home, but did not find explosives or firearms.
“At this stage in the probe, investigators have not identified a planned target,” deputy prosecutor Laure Vermeersch said, adding that the girl’s phone and computer have been seized.
Investigators are looking for the other participants in the chat group, and are trying to figure out if the girl had accomplices in her attack plot.
Back in March, two girls ages 15 and 17 were charged with criminal terrorist association and possibly plotting to attack a Paris concert hall, but investigators realized the plot was more fantasy than a significant operation.
A state of emergency has been in effect in France since the November 13, 2015 ISIS attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead.