World News

Germany: police arrest two individuals suspected of planning a ricin and cyanide attack

Published

3 months ago

January 9, 2023

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Steph Deschamps / January 9, 2023

German authorities announced Sunday that they had arrested a 32-year-old Iranian man following indications of a possible “Islamist” ricin and cyanide attack, following a warning from the FBI, according to press reports.

The apartment located in Castrop-Rauxel in the west of the country, in North Rhine-Westphalia, was searched during the night to verify the possible presence of these “toxic substances” intended to commit such an attack, according to a statement from the regional prosecutor and police. The investigators have not found “any evidence” on the presence of these products on site, told AFP the prosecutor of Düsseldorf, Holger Heming.

The regional Minister of the Interior, Herbert Reul, explained that the authorities had received “indications to be taken seriously” which led the police to “act during the night”.

According to the newspapers Spiegel and Süddeutsche Zeitung, it was the American FBI that warned the German services during the Christmas season. The US federal police would have managed to infiltrate a Telegram messaging group, where the suspect would have inquired first about bombings and then about those committed with toxic substances, according to Der Spiegel.

The man, along with a second person also arrested during the night at the same location, and who according to the German media is his brother, would have considered going into action on New Year’s Eve, but they lacked elements for the preparation of ricin and cyanide poisons, adds the Spiegel.

Despite the lack of immediately discovered evidence, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser justified the police raid. “Our security services take every indication of the danger of Islamic terrorism very seriously,” she said in a statement.

It remains to be seen whether the justice system will have enough evidence to initiate proceedings.

At this stage, the main suspect is still “suspected of having prepared a serious act of violence threatening the security of the state by obtaining cyanide and ricin with a view to committing an attack of an Islamist nature,” according to the statement issued by the local judiciary. According to Spiegel, the man is a Sunni Iranian sympathetic to the Islamic State (EI) group.

Ricin is a highly toxic agent classified by the Robert Koch Institute, responsible in Germany for medical and health monitoring, as a “biological weapon” and is extracted from the seeds of the ricin plant. It can be a deadly poison, like cyanide.

On the images of the private television channel NTV, we can see the two people arrested being taken away in their underwear by agents, dressed in special protective suits because of the biological risk.

In 2018, German police had already arrested a 31-year-old Tunisian and his wife, suspected of having wanted to prepare what would have been the first “biological” attack in the country.

At the home of the couple, who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group (EI), investigators had found 84.3 mg of ricin and some 3,300 castor beans to make the poison. The man was sentenced two years later to 10 years in prison and his wife to eight years.

Germany has been targeted in recent years by several Islamist attacks, including a ram-truck attack on a Christmas market in December 2016 that killed 13 people.

World News

Shooting in Hamburg, Germany, leaves two dead

Published

2 days ago

March 27, 2023

Magnate Daily

Reading Time: < 1 minutes

Sylvie Claire / March 27, 2023

Two people died in a shooting that took place Saturday night in Hamburg (Germany). According to the police, a man would have shot another individual before turning the weapon against him.

It could be a settlement of accounts between motorcycle gangs, the German press reported Sunday.

Earlier this month, the city of Hamburg was the scene of a shooting that left 7 dead and 12 wounded among the Jehovah’s Witness community.

Entertainment

Actor Peter Hardy, known for his role in “Neighbours”, was found dead

Published

6 days ago

March 23, 2023

Magnate Daily

Reading Time: < 1 minutes

Steph Deschamps / March 20, 2023

Peter Hardy is gone. The “Neighbours” actor died of drowning on a beach in Australia.

The world of cinema is in mourning this Sunday. We learned that Peter Hardy died on Thursday. The Australian actor died of drowning on a beach in Fremantle near Perth, Australia. According to several local sources, he was snorkeling at the time of the facts.

Peter Hardy was known for his role in the soap opera “Neighbours”. He had a career of almost 40 years on the big and small screen. He had also participated in the musical “Mamma Mia”.

The actor was 66 years old.

World News

War in Ukraine: the International Criminal Court will not let go of Vladimir Putin, the international arrest warrant remains valid for life

Published

6 days ago

March 23, 2023

Magnate Daily

Reading Time: < 1 minutes

The arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague (ICC) for Russian President Vladimir Putin will remain valid even if Russia’s war against Ukraine ends.

“There is no statute of limitations on war crimes,” ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan told BBC Radio on Monday.

The latter highlights Vladimir Putin’s alleged responsibility for the war crimes committed in Ukraine since Russia invaded the country. The arrest warrants against the head of state and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, will therefore remain hanging over their heads for the rest of their lives, he said. “Unless they appear before the independent judges of the court and the judges decide to drop the charges. »

The arrest warrants are essentially symbolic. A trial seems to be out of the question for the time being.

The British lawyer and chief prosecutor in the trial of former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague told Sky News reporters that because of the arrest warrant for him, Vladimir Putin has become a wanted criminal. “This label will stick to him for the rest of his life, unless he is tried and acquitted or, which is almost unthinkable, the ICC withdraws the arrest warrant,” he explained. “The arrest warrant is a very, very important and encouraging step,” he said.