German Officials Arrest Suspected Suitcase Bomber
NY Sun ^ | August 21, 2006 | AARON KIRCHFELD
nysun.com
German police on Saturday arrested a 22-year-old Lebanese student suspected of placing a suitcase holding a bomb made of gasoline and propane gas on a train last month.
Police arrested the man at a train station in Kiel, a northern German port city where he lives, early Saturday, interior minister of the state of Schleswig-Holstein, Ralf Stegner, said at a televised press conference. He has been in Germany since 2004 and studies mechanical and electrical engineering, Mr. Stegner said. Another man, suspected of placing a similar bomb on a train the same day, is still at large.
The man being held is "in all likelihood" one of two suspects seen in surveillance videos released to the public on Friday as part of the investigation, Mr. Stegner said, adding that the arrest did not come from a tip from the public. He did not name the suspect.
In the videos, two men are shown on July 31 each carrying a suitcase at Cologne train station before boarding local trains from the same platform.The suitcases were later found on a train to Hamm in western Germany from Aachen and to Koblenz from Mönchenngladbach about 75 miles to the north.
The suspects are thought to be part of a domestic terrorist network, Mr. Stegner said, citing federal prosecutor Monika Harms. Ms. Harms was cited by the DPA news agency as saying the arrested man was 21 years old.
"The second suspect is still at large, so the threat persists," the president of the Federal Criminal Police, Germany's most senior police official, Jörg Ziercke, said. "We don't know how the second suspect will react." |
