A 32-year-old Iranian man suspected of preparing a biological attack using cyanide and ricin has been arrested in western Germany, police and the attorney general’s office in Düsseldorf announced on Sunday.
The suspect’s accommodation in Castrop-Rauxel (North Rhine-Westphalia) was searched overnight for possible “toxic substances” intended to carry out an attack, according to a statement from the office of the general prosecutor and the Münster police. .
The Iranian is “suspected of having prepared a serious act of violence that threatens the security of the State by obtaining cyanide and ricin with the aim of committing an attack of Islamic extremism,” the investigators specify.
However, the authorities did not provide details on whether or not there was a concrete and immediate threat and what the level of preparedness was.
Ricin is a highly toxic agent classified by the Robert Koch Institute, responsible for medical and health surveillance in Germany, as a “biological weapon” and is extracted from the seeds of the ricin plant. It could be a deadly poison like cyanide.
A second person was also arrested during the operation. According to the WDR public television channel, he is the brother of the main suspect.
According to German media, the search involved police officers dressed in protective clothing due to the biohazard.
According to the Bild newspaper, the German authorities were warned a few days ago by a foreign intelligence service about the threat of a “chemical bomb” attack.
In 2018, the German police had already arrested a 31-year-old Tunisian and his wife, suspected of having prepared what would have been the first biological attack in the country.
With the couple, who had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group, the researchers found 84.3 milligrams of ricin and some 3,300 seeds of the plant used to make this poison. After two years, the man was tried and sentenced to 10 years in prison and his wife to eight years.
Germany has been the target of several Islamist attacks in recent years, including a truck attack on a Christmas market in December 2016 that left 13 dead.
Source: TSF
