Eindhoven terror suspect sentenced to prison, psych treatment

The court in Rotterdam sentenced 24-year-old Hasan A. from Eindhoven to 30 months in prison and institutionalized psychiatric treatment for preparing for terrorist crimes. The sentence is higher than the two years the Public Prosecutor demanded. A. must also complete a deradicalization trajectory, AD reports.

A. was arrested in the summer of last year while he was driving through Eindhoven wearing a balaclava. When the police searched his home, they found a taser, a knife, cable ties and ISIS propaganda. On his computer there were also two folders containing plans for terrorist attacks. The first folder, named 'Plan 1', contained information about the Volkel military airbase in Noord-Brabant, such as info about access roads and security posts. 'Plan 2' contained similar information about the airbase in Leeuwarden.

The young Eindhoven man also gathered information about Prime Minister Mark Rutte and PVV leader Geert Wilders.

During his trial, A. told the court that he "fantasized about attacks" in that period. He was brainwashed by terrorist organization ISIS, he said, according to the newspaper. "I believed their propaganda. I thought my life among them would be better. I was brainwashed."

But A.'s fantasies never turned into concrete plans for an attack, something the Public Prosecutor agrees with. A. told the court that he abandoned his radical ideas in the months he spent on the terrorist department of the Vught prison since his arrest.

A. was examined in the Pieter Baan Center and diagnosed with an autistic disorder. A psychiatrist described him as "naive and impressionable".