US teenager pleads guilty in plot to kill Pope Francis

Santos Colon, a New Jersey teen, has pleaded guilty to a plot allegedly inspired by the Islamic State group to kill Pope Francis during his 2015 visit to the US.

The US justice department on Monday said Colon, 15 years old at the time, sought to recruit a sniper to shoot the Pope as he celebrated mass in Philadelphia in September 2015.

Colon also allegedly planned to set off explosives.

However, the teen unwittingly recruited an undercover FBI agent for the job, and was quietly arrested twelve days before the event.

“Colon engaged someone he believed would be the sniper, but in reality was an undercover FBI employee,” the justice department said in a statement.

“Colon engaged in target reconnaissance with an FBI confidential source and instructed the source to purchase materials to make explosive devices.

“Court documents said Colon sought to carry out the act in support of the Islamic State group and that he had used the adopted name Ahmad Shakoor.”

In a plea bargain with prosecutors, Colon, now 17, agreed to forgo trial and plead guilty as an adult to one charge of providing material support to a terror group.

With the deal, prosecutors dropped three other charges filed against him as a juvenile.

Court documents said the charges were in relation to the Islamic State group, which Washington has designated a foreign terrorist organisation.

But there were no details on how Colon became interested in the group and if or how he communicated with them.