Germany: German police have detained a 32-year-old Iranian national suspected of ordering the deadly poison cyanide and ricin to carry out the attack, West German authorities said on Sunday.
According to a joint press release from the Düsseldorf public prosecutor’s office and police in the cities of Recklinghausen and Münster, the suspect’s residence in the city of Castro-Raxel was searched as part of the investigation.
“The suspect is suspected of having prepared a serious act of violence endangering the state by allegedly purchasing cyanide and ricin to carry out the attack,” the statement said.
Police said it carries a jail term of 6 months to 10 years.
Holger Hemming of Düsseldorf’s public prosecutor’s office told Reuters that police seized the electronic storage devices but found neither cyanide nor racine during the search.
Castrop-Rauxel is located in Germany’s most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia, whose interior minister Herbert Revel said: “We had a serious report which forced the police to intervene during the night. The authorities now Investigations are being carried out at full speed.”
Hemming said the signal came from a “friendly state’s” security agency, without elaborating. Mass tabloids blood said that the agency in question was the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
A second person has been detained as part of the search, police said, adding that a decision on whether to issue an official arrest warrant will be made later as the investigation continues.
Hemming confirmed the man was the suspect’s brother.
Ricin, which occurs naturally in castor beans, can cause death within 36 to 72 hours. There is no known antidote.
According to German domestic intelligence services, the number of members or supporters of religious causes fell by 1.5 percent to 28,290 in 2021, citing the “military disintegration” of the ISIS group.
On December 19, 2016, Anis Amri, a failed Tunisian asylum seeker, drove a truck into a West Berlin Christmas market, killing 11 people and injuring dozens.
News of Sunday’s searches came more than a month after German authorities arrested 25 members and supporters of a far-right group that the prosecutor’s office said was calling for the violent end of the state. Preparing for