The German police detained five people suspected of planning an attack on the Christmas market in southern Germany. According to the DPA agency, the prosecutor’s office in Munich informed about this on Saturday. For four men arrest warrants were issued, the fifth was taken into preventive custody. All five are suspected of planning an attack on a Christmas market in the Dingolfing area in southern Bavaria.
The prosecutor’s office currently assumes that the attack had an Islamist motive and should have been committed using a vehicle. At the same time, however, she emphasized the presumption of innocence on Saturday evening. The newspaper Bild was the first to report on this case, according to which the suspects were probably arrested on Friday. On Saturday, the detained persons were brought before a judge.
According to the prosecutor’s office, the suspects include a 56-year-old Egyptian, a 37-year-old Syrian and three Moroccans aged 22, 28 and 30. According to the preliminary state of the investigation, the Egyptian in the mosque in the area of Dingolfing-Landau allegedly called for an attack. It is not yet known when he was to be attacked and what the specific plans were. Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann, in an interview with Bild, praised the cooperation of the security authorities, which made it possible apprehend the suspects in a very short timee, preventing a potentially Islamist attack in Bavaria.
