Migrant suspected of plotting Russian embassy attack in Berlin – German prosecutors
German security agencies have detained a Moroccan man suspected of plotting an attack at the Russian embassy in Berlin, Dresden prosecutors told RIA Novosti. The suspect apparently planned to approach the embassy by mingling with a crowd of protesters.
A 24-year-old Moroccan immigrant, identified in German media as Mohammed B.H., has been in police custody since Saturday and is said to have planned the potential assault.
“I can confirm that he is suspected of planning an attack at the [Russian] embassy,” Steve Schulze-Reinhold, a representative for the prosecutor’s office in Dresden, told RIA Novosti.
The investigation into the “serious, state-threatening act of violence” has been launched, but there is still no arrest warrant issued for the suspect, he added.
The suspect was detained during a raid by the elite SEK police special forces unit at a refugee facility in Borsdorf, a municipality near the eastern city of Leipzig, Tagesspiegel reported.
According to the newspaper, the potential attack would have come “as revenge for Russia’s support of the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.”
While not much is known about the case, it was revealed that Mohammed B. H. planned to mingle with a crowd of protesters, thus approaching the embassy premises.
The suspect was already known to security agencies. In February, the Moroccan entered an education and technology college in Borsdorf and told students he had a bomb inside his backpack.
The building was evacuated, but it remained unclear at that time who the man in question was, according to Tagesspiegel.
Denis Mikerin, a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Berlin, told TASS that diplomats were in contact with Germany’s law enforcement agencies to evaluate the situation.
