A court in western Germany has found a 16-year-old Syrian refugee guilty of planning to carry out a bomb attack.

The Cologne regional court sentenced the teenager, who wasn't identified due to German privacy laws, to two years in prison.

He was arrested in September. The defendant's lawyers had asked for an acquittal.

In its ruling Monday, the court accepted the prosecution's claim that the teen received bomb-making instructions from a person in Israel with ties to the Islamic State group.

Judges said the teen's plans were at a very early stage and the public never was in concrete danger.

They also noted that the refugee was extremely lonely when he reached out to radical Islamic jihadists.

The ruling can be appealed.