Three men arrested in Berlin yesterday are in custody. The Federal Prosecutor General suspects she of having prepared an attack on behalf of Hamas. The search continues for a weapons depot. It’s supposed to be in Poland.
This morning a Federal Police helicopter took off from Berlin to bring two of the three men who were arrested by special forces in the capital yesterday afternoon to Karlsruhe. The third accused had previously been driven to the Federal Court of Justice by a convoy of vehicles. There, over the course of the day, the three men were brought before the investigating judge one after the other, who ordered each to be taken into custody. Extradition to Germany is currently being prepared for the fourth man arrested in Rotterdam.
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office, which is leading the investigation, announced yesterday that the four men are accused of being members of the terrorist organization Hamas and of preparing an attack on Jewish institutions in Europe. These are two stateless Palestinians who were born in Lebanon, an Egyptian national and a Dutch national residing in the Netherlands. They are said to have been in contact with Hamas cadres in Lebanon. From there they are said to have received the order to bring weapons from an earth depot to Berlin.
Depot in Poland
According to information from ARD capital studio and SWR Investigators suspect the depot is in Poland. It is said to have been there since the beginning of 2023. As the Federal Prosecutor’s Office announced yesterday, the men are said to have made several trips in varying compositions to find the depot – but in vain.
The German security authorities learned about information from ARD capital studio and SWR through a foreign intelligence service’s tip-off about the suspected attack plan. The accused were then identified, wiretapped and observed. There does not appear to have been any concrete attack planning yet.
On Thursday, five apartments and a restaurant were searched in Berlin. There may be further evidence of a planned attack on data storage media confiscated. Since the weapons were supposed to be brought across the border to Berlin, it seems obvious that an attack should be carried out in Germany.
Order already in spring
The alleged plan is apparently not a consequence of the murderous attack carried out by Hamas on Israel on October 7th. The federal prosecutor’s office announced on Thursday that the men had already received the order to get the weapons from the depot in the spring. If the allegations are confirmed, the activities of Hamas members in Germany would have to be reassessed. In recent years, the security authorities have assumed that Hamas supporters primarily use Germany as a refuge and are not terrorist-active in this country.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution recently estimated the number of Hamas supporters in Germany at around 450 in the Office for the Protection of the Constitution report for 2022. At the beginning of November, the Federal Ministry of the Interior issued a ban on Hamas’s activities, and two weeks later the police in several federal states, especially in Berlin, had visited Hamas. members and the Palestinian Community Association in Germany.