Police transcripts show German Islamists bragged about bloodshed

May 5, 2009, 17:08 GMT

Dusseldorf - Police transcripts read aloud Tuesday at the trial in Germany of four alleged Islamist terrorists showed that the young Germans traded boyish bragging about the bloodshed they hoped to cause by letting off car bombs.

The main trio in the plot were under constant surveillance with listening devices in the months before their arrest in 2007.

'The main thing is, some have gotta die. You know, really die,' said one man.

'My minimum would be 100, maybe 120,' said one man, Adem Yilmaz, 30, a Turkish citizen raised in Germany. The group's dominant member, Fritz Gelowicz, then topped that by saying '150,' the text showed.

The men also talked of copying an Islamist bombing in Bali, by letting off a small bomb in a disco, then a major bomb when a crowd had gathered, or staging an attack on a September 11 to imply a link to the 2001 hijacked-jet attacks on New York and Washington.

Using German teenage slang, one said, 'If we can get it to go off on September 11, they'll go nuts. This will be a good attack.'

Yilmaz joked that they would become the 'super terrorists' and bragged, 'It'll be us three against all Germany.'

The group bought 730 kilograms of hydrogen peroxide, a bomb-making chemical, and detonators, but had not fixed a target when they were arrested, though they allegedly outlined plans for three car bombs and an attack on an airbase without using a car.

Extracts from 30 hours of transcripts were read to the court in Dusseldorf by a federal police inspector who was one of the leaders of the inquiry. He said the men use the word 'attack' in German or Arabic a total of 30 times while police were listening.

The other two on trial are German citizens Atilla Selek and Daniel Schneider. The trial is expected to last many months.