Illustration - Photo: police.hu

Teenager arrested for planning mosque attack

A court has ordered the pre-trial detention of a 15-year-old male from Erd, south of Budapest, on suspicion of planning an attack on a mosque in Hungary, the National Bureau of Investigation said on police.hu on Thursday.

A foreign law enforcement service notified the counter-terrorism TEK centre on the morning of April 29 in connection with a TikTok video post about a planned attack in a mosque in Hungary and a subsequent post announcing an impending live-streamed attack.

Law enforcement agencies then took swift action to protect religious places of worship, communities and institutions in Hungary.

After several hours attempting to identify the subject, police discovered that the teenager had followed online the Australian man who killed 51 people in New Zealand in March 2019, during which he live-streamed his attack on two mosques, the police statement said.

Police set out to intercept the teen as he took a scheduled bus to Kazincbarcika, a town in north-east Hungary. In the meantime, the suspect travelled to meet his girlfriend, whom he had threatened to kill. He was taken into custody at Kazincbarcika Police Station on suspicion of harassment, it added.

He is now being held in a secure facility on Budapest for questioning on suspicion of planning to commit an act of terrorism.

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