Syrian Charged in Germany Over Failed Bomb Plot
August 27, 2006
The 23-year-old Syrian, named as Fadi A.S., was charged with belonging to a terrorist group, attempted murder and trying to cause an explosion, said a statement from the federal prosecutor's office in this southwest German city.
"Other members of a terrorist organization, currently unknown, may possibly" have taken part in the attempted bombing, the statement added.
The latest suspect was arrested on Friday in a dawn swoop on student residences in the southern lakeside city of Konstanz, as part of an investigation into a failed attempt to set off two bombs in July.
The prosecutor said Fadi A.S. previously lived in Kiel, northern Germany, and was suspected to have helped other accomplices escape to Lebanon, Turkey and Syria. He was initially reported at the time of his arrest to have been Lebanese.
Links to suspects
The prosecutor has linked the man to Lebanese student Youssef Mohammed el-Hajdib, one of the main suspects in the plot to bomb trains heading for the western cities of Hamm, near Dortmund, and Koblenz on July 31.
Hajdib is being held in preventive detention in Berlin.
On Saturday the prosecutor said Fadi A.S. had searched on the Internet to find instructions to build bombs. The instructions he found matched the type of bombs that were found unexploded on two passenger trains, it added.
Four suspects -- two in Germany and two in Lebanon -- have been detained so far in connection with the plot. Apart from Fadi A.S., all the suspects are Lebanese.
Comments by the secretary of state in the German interior ministry, August Hanning, published in Sunday's edition of the daily Berliner Zeitung, confirmed that more arrests may follow.
German authorities are also looking to extradite a 24-year-old Lebanese suspect arrested in Lebanon on Friday. With Lebanese help, they are trying to find out whether the suspects are linked to Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamist party banned in Germany.
German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble meanwhile warned the public to be extra vigilant. A poll published on Saturday by RTL said that 73 percent of Germans expected a terrorist attack in the country in the near future.