A German court sentenced a Lebanese man on Tuesday to life in prison on a conviction of attempted murder for trying to set off bombs on German trains two years ago in response to cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper in 2005. Prosecutors said Youssef al-Haj Deeb and an accomplice boarded two trains in Cologne with suitcases containing tanks of propane gas and crude detonators.
Prosecutors said if the bombs had gone off, they could have caused up to 75 casualties. Deeb told the court he had not intended to kill anyone with the devices, saying he had intentionally built them in such away that they would not explode.