Less than two months after the Islamist-motivated terrorist attack on the Christopher Street Day (CSD) gay festival in Berlin, the German government has unveiled a new ten-point security plan aimed at tightening measures and penalties linked to Islamist terrorism.
Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt and Justice Minister Stephanie Hobig announced the plan from the headquarters of the German Chancellery, while the government prepares to discuss it during its meeting today, Wednesday, September 16.
The plan includes imposing a prison sentence of no less than one year in cases of extremely serious physical abuse using knives or other dangerous tools, if the act exposes a person to the risk of death or to the possibility of serious health damage.
This trend comes in light of the repeated carrying out of Islamist-motivated attacks over the past years using knives or vehicles, which prompted the government to review the legal frameworks for such crimes.
The plan also stipulates that greater weight be given to security considerations when making decisions to suspend the implementation of sentences and conditional release of convicts. Under the new proposals, society's security interests and the protection of the legal system will be taken into account when deciding on the parole of those sentenced to prison terms of at least six months.
The government indicated that these measures were the result of a joint agreement between Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt and Justice Minister Stephanie Haubig.
As part of strengthening oversight of people classified as security risks, the government seeks to expand the use of electronic ankle monitoring devices (electronic bracelets). Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said: “Known potential terrorists should be dealt with more strictly,” stressing that expanding the use of electronic bracelets will contribute to improving protection against these people.
The plan also proposes requiring the courts to provide explicit justifications when they decide to apply the Juvenile Penal Code to defendants who are at the age of majority, namely young men who have reached the age of eighteen and have not yet reached the legal age of majority in Germany, which is 21 years. In this context, Justice Minister Stephanie Hobig stressed that “the juvenile criminal code is not lenient justice.”
The young man Abdullah b. (21 years old) carried out an Islamist-motivated attack on July 25 when he drove his car into a crowd of participants and attendees on the sidelines of a gay event in the Tiergarten neighborhood in Berlin. The attack resulted in the death of a woman and the injury of at least 31 people, some of them seriously. After carrying out the operation, the attacker was able to escape, before the police shot him dead the next day inside a small garden complex in the Spandau neighborhood in the German capital.
Investigations revealed that the perpetrator of the attack was known to the German authorities as an Islamic extremist. In May 2026, the Tiergarten District Court had sentenced him to one year and ten months in prison in accordance with the Juvenile Penal Code, after convicting him of preparing a serious violent act that threatened the state. The conviction came against the backdrop of his travel to Lebanon with the aim of joining ISIS in Syria, in addition to violations related to publishing propaganda materials for the organization. The court also decided at that time to implement what is known as “preconditional release,” which is a procedure that postpones the decision on whether to implement or suspend the sentence for a period of six months, provided that the convict participates during that period in programs to combat extremism and rehabilitation.
Among the most prominent provisions of the new plan is also the expansion of the powers to oblige telecommunications companies to save communications traffic data for a specific period of time. In the future, this right will not be limited to the Federal Police and the Federal Criminal Police Office, but will extend to the investigative authorities in the German states. The required data includes information related to the parties to the contact, its timing and place, while emphasizing that issuing orders to preserve this data will remain conditional on the presence of indicators of a crime or the existence of a situation involving an existing security risk.
