A Syrian asylum seeker has been detained in Germany on suspicion of asking ISIS for money to buy and booby trap cars to kill a large number of "non-Muslim" people in “Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands,” German authorities say.
The 38-year old man was detained early Sunday by German special forces in his flat in the city of Saarbrucken in the Federal State of Saarland. Official confirmation of the operation and further details emerged only on Monday. The Syrian refugee was arrested after Saarland police received a tip off from the Federal Criminal police.
According to the Prosecutor’s office, the man in custody is suspected of having reached out to an Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorist group’s contact person in December “who he knew was in a position to obtain IS money for terror financing.” The asylum seeker apparently “asked him [IS contact person] to provide €180,000 so he [the suspect] can use the money to buy vehicles, which he planned to bobby trap with explosives,” a statement by the Prosecutor’s office reads.
The Syrian asylum seeker allegedly planned to buy eight cars - €22,500 each - booby trap the vehicles and drive them into the crowds to “kill a large number of non-Muslim people.” He reportedly said 400 to 500 kilograms (882 to 1,100 pounds) of explosives would be placed in each car.
The Prosecutor’s office announced that the reasons for its assumptions are based on a chat in the online messenger Telegram, which was found in the telephone of the suspect during a search of his flat. “So far the investigation has found no evidence that the suspect had already prepared [booby trapped] cars to carry out the attacks,” authorities noted though.
According to a separate statement by police in Saarland, the suspect allegedly asked for the IS money to finance an “unspecified terrorist attack” in “Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.”
Hugo Muller, Deputy Commissioner for the Saarland police said that the Syrian man planned to repaint the vehicles as police cars. "In his respective communications with contacts linked to IS, he [the suspect] offered or suggested to repaint cars to make them look similar to police cars, load them with explosives, position them in a crowd of people and then detonate them," Muller said.
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