After the night-time anti-terror operation in Castrop-Rauxel in the Ruhr area, NRW Interior Minister Reul explains why the police took action with particular urgency and arrested a 32-year-old. An important source of information was probably a foreign secret service.
After the anti-terrorist operation in Castrop-Rauxel in the Ruhr area, the police are investigating at high pressure, according to North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister Herbert Reul. “We had a serious tip that prompted the police to intervene that night,” said the CDU politician. Now the results of the investigation have to be awaited.
On Sunday night, emergency services arrested a 32-year-old Iranian who is said to have prepared an Islamist attack. According to the Düsseldorf public prosecutor’s office, the man is suspected of having bought the toxins cyanide and ricin. It is not yet clear how far the plans for the attack had progressed and whether there was already a concrete target for the attack.
According to information from “Bild”, the Federal Criminal Police Office has been investigating the Iranian for several days. A “friend of the secret service” is said to have warned the German security authorities about the danger of a chemical bomb attack. It is not yet clear whether Reul alluded to this reference.
Four years ago, investigations in Cologne showed just how dangerous ricin is: in a 15-story building in the high-rise district of Chorweiler, a Tunisian and his German wife produced the chemical and set off test explosions. Whistleblower back then: A foreign secret service.
He became suspicious because of the online purchases of large quantities of castor seeds and gave a tip. Both were sentenced to long prison terms. An expert report showed that, purely arithmetically, 13,500 people could have died from the amount of poison. If the perpetrators had planned to spread it with a cluster bomb spiked with steel balls, around 200 people would have died.
