According to research by broadcasters NDR and WDR, the State Criminal Police Office of Lower Saxony arrested a 20-year-old last week. The man is suspected of having planned a terrorist attack.
The arrested man is said to be an Iraqi citizen who has only been in Germany since last year. According to information from security circles, the man is said to have been plotting to attack visitors to a Christmas market with a knife. The asylum application of the man, who had been offered a job in Lower Saxony, is said to have been rejected a few days ago.
According to information from NDR and WDR, the target of the attack could possibly have been the Christmas market in Hanover. We “cannot rule that out at the moment”, a spokesperson for the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office (LKA) told the German Press Agency on Friday. Lower Saxony’s Interior Minister Daniela Behrens (SPD) told NDR Lower Saxony on Thursday evening that although there were no indications of any concrete attacks in Lower Saxony, the available information had prompted the security authorities to take the 20-year-old into preventive custody.
The 20-year-old from Saxony-Anhalt was taken into police custody by the LKA in Helmstedt on November 21 as part of the security measures. “The 20-year-old is still in police custody on the basis of security measures. The State Criminal Police Office of Lower Saxony is not providing any further background information at present for tactical investigative reasons,” said an LKA spokesperson. According to the investigators, he is an Islamist who is said to have agreed to carry out such an attack in support of the terrorist militia “Islamic State” (IS).
In the meantime, the Federal Public Prosecutor General in Karlsruhe is investigating the possible support of a terrorist organisation in this case and has had the man’s flat searched. A spokeswoman for the authority did not wish to comment on the facts of the case when asked.
