Castrop-Rauxel (dpa/lnw) – The 32-year-old terror suspect from Castrop-Rauxel remains at large despite all objections from the Attorney General’s Office. The Dortmund district court also sees no urgent suspicion against the man given the current evidence, the Düsseldorf public prosecutor said on Tuesday. Strong suspicion is a prerequisite for a suspect to remain in custody.
The Iranian was released from prison by a magistrate at the end of January. The public prosecutor’s office, as the investigative authority, had lodged a complaint, arguing that the Iranian was still strongly suspected of having prepared an Islamist-motivated attack together with his 25-year-old brother. The younger of the two brothers remains in prison.
The public prosecutor’s office will now decide whether to go to the next instance and lodge an appeal against the release from prison at the Hamm Higher Regional Court, a spokesman said. Regardless of whether the man is in custody or not, the investigations against him continued.
The two 32 and 25-year-old brothers were arrested on the night of January 8 during a spectacular anti-terrorist operation in Castrop-Rauxel in the northern Ruhr area. According to information from a foreign secret service, the investigators assumed that the 32-year-old’s apartment could contain the highly dangerous toxins cyanide and ricin for an attack. Both substances were not found, but according to earlier information from NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU), other “small amounts of chemical and biological substances”. The two men are said to have originally planned an attack on New Year’s Eve on behalf of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist militia.
