Terror alert
Cologne Cathedral: European arrest warrant against suspect
The police were deployed with a large contingent at Cologne Cathedral because of the terror warning. (archive image) photo
© Sascha Thelen/dpa
A terror warning has been in effect for Cologne Cathedral since Christmas and the cathedral is no longer accessible to tourists. A suspect caught on Christmas Eve will not be released.
One in connection with the terror warning for the The man arrested in Cologne Cathedral will not be released because of a European arrest warrant from Austria. The Cologne police announced on Sunday that extradition proceedings were pending at the Cologne Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The Cologne district court then issued a so-called detention order, the police said. The 30-year-old Tajik was transferred to the Cologne correctional facility. The suspect was arrested on Christmas Eve in Wesel on the Lower Rhine. According to earlier reports, he was in long-term custody.
According to the Vienna public prosecutor’s office, the arrest warrant was issued for suspected terrorism. The measure is related to the group of suspects arrested in Vienna, said a spokeswoman for the German Press Agency. She did not want to give further details.
What happened?
Shortly before Christmas, the security authorities received information about a terrorist attack planned in Cologne Cathedral or in the area around the cathedral. Islamist extremists should be behind this. After further investigation, the police reported on New Year’s Eve that it was a “network of people from Central Asia.” A car was supposed to have been used for the attack.
In connection with the investigation, four other men were arrested on New Year’s Eve in North Rhine-Westphalia. Three of them, aged 25, 30 and 38, had Tajik or Uzbek citizenship and were arrested in Nörvenich in the Düren district as well as in Duisburg and Herne in the Ruhr area, the fourth, a 41-year-old German-Turk, in Bochum.
Only the man arrested in Düren, a 25-year-old Tajik, was placed in long-term police custody on a court order. He can be held until January 14th. The others were released on New Year’s Day. The police emphasized that the detentions served to avert danger.
In addition to the tip-off about the possible attack plan in Cologne, security authorities had also received a tip-off before Christmas about a possible planned attack on a church in Vienna. In Vienna, too, the police increased security measures at Christmas.
One of the three suspects who were arrested in Vienna shortly before Christmas on suspicion of terrorism was released from custody on Friday, a spokeswoman for the Vienna regional court told dpa. Whether the other two will remain in custody will be decided in the coming days. According to dpa information, the released man is a man with Chechen roots, while those still detained in Vienna are a Tajik and a woman with Turkish roots.
On New Year’s Eve – the day on which the attack was reportedly planned in Cologne – the police secured the cathedral with around 1,000 emergency services. Since Christmas, the medieval cathedral has only been accessible to churchgoers and no longer to tourists. The police cannot yet say when the security precautions will be reduced again.