Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

CRIME

Suspect accused of bomb attack on Dortmund football team bus faces trial in December

A German-Russian man, accused of carrying out a bomb attack on Borussia Dortmund's team bus, will go on trial on December 21st, a German court said on Friday.

Published: 10 November 2017 16:42 CET

Suspect accused of bomb attack on Dortmund football team bus faces trial in December

The Dortmund bus after the attack. Photo: DPA.

Sergej W., 28, has been charged with 28 counts of attempted murder, setting off explosions and causing serious physical injury in the assault on April 11th.

Prosecutors say he was hoping to profit from a drop in the football team's share price as a result of the attack.

The trial is expected to last until the end of March.

The suspect faces life in prison, although in Germany, parole is usually granted after 15 years.

Three explosive devices hidden in a hedge went off next to the team bus, just as it left the squad's hotel heading for a Champions League quarter-final match at home against Monaco.

The blasts shattered bus windows and Spanish international Marc Bartra, 26, broke his wrist, while a motorcycle police officer suffered inner ear damage from the blast.

Ten days after the bomb attack, the German-Russian was arrested, with prosecutors saying he was hoping to make huge amounts of money on the stock market in the wake of the attack.

The suspect had taken out options on thousands of Borussia's listed shares in advance and allegedly planned to sell them at a pre-determined level after the attack when he bet that share prices would plunge.

Investigators also suspect that the man may have been planning other attacks.

According to the indictment, quoted Monday by Spiegel Online, he searched the internet to learn more about cable car companies and their share prices.

Germany arrests Syrian man accused of plotting to kill soldiers

The suspect, an “alleged follower of a radical Islamic ideology”, was arrested on Thursday on charges of planning “a serious act of violence endangering the state”.

The man had acquired two heavy knives “around 40 centimetres (more than one foot) in length” in recent days, prosecutors in Munich said.

He planned to “attack Bundeswehr soldiers” in the city of Hof in northern Bavaria during their lunch break, aiming “to kill as many of them as possible”, prosecutors said.

“The accused wanted to attract attention and create a feeling of insecurity among the population,” they said.

German security services have been on high alert over the threat of Islamist attacks, in particular since the Gaza war erupted on October 7th with the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Police shot dead a man in Munich this month after he opened fire on officers in what was being treated as a suspected “terrorist attack” on the Israeli consulate in Munich.

The shootout fell on the anniversary of the kidnap and killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games by Palestinian militants.

The 18-year-old suspect had previously been investigated by authorities in his home country Austria on suspicion of links to terrorism but the case had been dropped.

The incident capped a string of attacks in Germany, which have stirred a sense of insecurity in Germany and fed a bitter debate of immigration.

Three people were killed last month in a suspected Islamist stabbing at a festival in the western city of Solingen.

READ ALSO: ‘Ban asylum seekers’ – How Germany is reacting to Solingen attack

The suspect in the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State group, was a Syrian man who had been slated for deportation from Germany.

A federal interior ministry spokesman said if an Islamist motive was confirmed in the latest foiled attack, it would be “further evidence of the high threat posed by Islamist terrorism in Germany, which was recently demonstrated by the serious crimes in Mannheim and the attack in Solingen, but also by acts that were fortunately prevented by the timely intervention of the security authorities”.

The Solingen stabbing followed a knife attack in the city of Mannheim in May, which left a policeman dead, and which had also been linked to Islamism by officials.

Germany has responded to the attacks by taking steps to tighten immigration controls and knife laws.

READ ALSO: Debt, migration and the far-right – the big challenges facing Germany this autumn

The government has announced new checks along all of its borders and promised to speed up deportations of migrants who have no right to stay in Germany.

The number of people considered Islamist extremists in Germany fell slightly from 27,480 in 2022 to 27,200 last year, according to a report from the federal domestic intelligence agency.

But Interior Minister Nancy Faeser warned in August that “the threat posed by Islamist terrorism remains high”.

SHOW COMMENTS

Url copied to clipboard!