Three people were wounded in the blast April 16, one of them seriously. The interior ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia state told regional lawmakers today that one of the two 16-year-old suspects had been in a violence prevention programme aimed at Islamic extremists.
German news agency dpa quoted a ministry spokesman saying the boy once threatened to break a Jewish fellow student's neck.
Essen police chief Frank Richter called the attack "an act of terror.