Posted on 08/25/2006 5:44:25 PM PDT by Shermy
BEIRUT: A Lebanese citizen was arrested in the North on Friday in connection with an alleged terrorist plot to blow up two trains in Germany on July 31, according to Lebanon's State Prosecutor Saeid Mirza.
The Friday arrest was the fourth in the case so far. One other Lebanese suspect has been arrested in Lebanon, and one Lebanese and one Syrian suspect have been arrested in Germany. The men are suspected of planting bombs on passenger trains heading for Hamm, near Dortmund, and Koblenz on July 31.
The homemade devices failed to detonate.
Mirza said that the man arrested Friday - identified only as "H.A." - and the other Lebanese suspect, Jihad Hamad, 20, "are being held at the Internal Security's Central Forensic Department" and that an interrogation "is taking place under [Mirza's] direct supervision."
Interior Minister Ahmad Fatfat told The Daily Star Friday that the arrest was made by "the judicial police and not the Internal Security Forces."
The ISF arrested Hamad earlier this week, and brought in "H.A." initially as a witness to the judiciary on Friday. Later, based on orders from the judiciary, the man became a suspect.
Fatfat said the man who was arrested Friday "is related to the Lebanese citizen arrested in Germany last week."
Youssef Mohammad al-Hajj Deeb, 21, a student, was arrested in the northern German city of Kiel last Saturday following a tip-off from Lebanese military intelligence.
The Syrian suspect was arrested in the southern German city of Konstanz. Authorities have linked him to Hajj Deeb.
A Lebanese judicial source said that the current phase focuses on "gathering information to understand further the plan that the suspects were carrying out and the sides they are working for."
The source told The Daily Star that "it is unlikely to hand over the detainees to be tried in Germany. As Lebanese citizens they will be tried in Lebanon."
German investigators will on Friday question one of the Lebanese suspects.
"We are confident that he will break his silence and that we will know more by this afternoon," the head of Germany's Federal Crime Office, Joerg Ziercke, told ARD television.
He added that the German authorities were hunting for more accomplices in the plot, which has been described as a bid to copy the deadly train blasts in London and Madrid.
"We believe that there are more accomplices in Germany," he said. A German prosecutor has traveled to Tripoli for Hamad's questioning, he said. - With agencies
"and the other Lebanese suspect, Jihad Hamad, 20"
Jihad Hamad... u'r kidding right?
Not if they have any brains.
Here we have a foreign national in civilian garb involved in an act of war, namely sabotage.
The traditional penalty for spies and saboteurs?
Death
Yes, his first name is Jihad. Not that the jury should draw any unwarranted conclusions from that, of course ...
It's America's fault.
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