BFF-45 Germany foiled bio attack with Tunisian arrest: police

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GERMANY-ATTACK-BIOLOGICAL-MIGRANT-TUNISIA

Germany foiled bio attack with Tunisian arrest: police

BERLIN, June 20, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A Tunisian man arrested in Germany in
possession of the deadly poison ricin and bomb-making material was planning a
biological attack, the national police chief said Wednesday.

“Very concrete preparations had been made for an act with a …
biological bomb, which is a first for Germany,” Holger Muench, head of the
Federal Criminal Police Office, told public broadcaster ARD.

German police commandos on June 12 stormed the Cologne apartment of the
29-year-old Tunisian migrant identified only as Sief Allah H. and discovered
“toxic substances” that turned out to be ricin.

Produced by processing castor beans, ricin is 6,000 times more lethal
than cyanide and has no known antidote.

German news weekly Der Spiegel has reported the man was thought to have
been following instructions disseminated by the Islamic State group on how to
build a bomb containing ricin.

Prosecutors have charged that he was “strongly suspected of intentionally
manufacturing biological weapons” but it remained unclear whether he was
actively plotting an attack.

Muench said “we became aware of this person a few months ago, and then
evidence emerged pointing to links to the so-called Islamic State”.

The case was an example of “good cooperation between security
authorities, nationally and internationally”, he said.

Bild daily has reported Germany received a tip-off from the CIA based on
the suspect’s online purchases.

During the raid, said Muench, “we found a large number of castor seeds
from which to make it (ricin), as well as the utensils you need to make an
explosive device”.

“Which concrete target he had in mind we don’t know yet … and the
question of possible accomplices also remains open,” said Muench.

Prosecutors say Sief Allah H. started buying the equipment and
ingredients to make ricin in mid-May — including an online purchase of “a
thousand castor seeds and an electric coffee grinder”.

He succeeded in manufacturing the toxin earlier this month.

The case comes less than a month after French authorities said they had
foiled a terror attack possibly involving the use of ricin. Two brothers of
Egyptian origin were arrested.

Germany remains on high alert after several deadly attacks claimed by the
IS group, including a 2016 truck rampage through a Berlin Christmas market by
Tunisian asylum seeker Anis Amri that claimed 12 lives.

BSS/AFP/RY/1647 hrs