Cyanide extortion inquiry widens (attempt to poison German water supply)

GOETTINGEN – The investigation into threats to poison the local water supply by a man found to be in possession of 50 kilogrammes of cyanide will include the company that supplied the poison, a prosecutor's office spokesman said Thursday.

The 32-year-old suspect behind the threats made to administrators in the town of Einbeck, 40 kilometres north of Goettingen, will be examined to determine mental stability.

"We are examining whether the company violated the legal regulations in selling the chemical," said prosecutor's office spokesman Hans Hugo Heimgaertner.

In letters last April, the suspect had warned that he would poison the water supply of Einbeck on 11 September. Prosecutors have nonetheless discounted a political motive in the man's threats, focussing instead on personal problems.

Under questioning, the man made confused statements, which prompted the psychiatric examination.

Also raising concern has been the ease with which the man obtained the deadly poison. The suspect worked as an employee for a fur treatment company which has a plant in Poland and an office in the town of Northeim, 10 kilometres from Einbeck. The man had ordered the cyanide for that office and then taken it home with him. Cyanide is also used in fur treatment.

Police found the cyanide in a small barrel in the cellar of the suspect's apartment house.

GERMANY: ARREST IN THREAT TO POISON WATER SUPPLY

The police in the western town of Einbeck arrested a 32-year-old man they say threatened to poison the town's water supply with 110 pounds of cyanide, prosecutors said. They said the poison was found in the basement of the man's home after the authorities traced two letters sent to them earlier this year. They said that the cyanide was ordered from a local delivery company under false pretenses and that the man planned the attack on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

An article about a year ago talks about the attempt to poison the water supply in Rome, Al Qaeda link and possible link to the 9-11 terrorists.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0307/p07s02-woeu.html

Italian police explore Al Qaeda links in cyanide plot

Four cases focus on the recent arrests of North Africans and others allegedly tied to Islamic militant cells.

Investigators also believe the men arrested Friday may have been part of a network of cells operating throughout Italy and Europe with links to the GIA (Armed Islamic Group) and the GSPC (Salafist Group for Call and Combat), and ultimately with Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network.

Italian authorities are looking for any links between the group arrested last Friday - which included a Pakistani (suspected as the ringleader), a Tunisian, an Algerian and three Iraqis - and a group of nine Moroccans arrested earlier this month after the discovery of a perforation in a tunnel near the US Embassy. So far, the only links between the two groups are cyanide and a mosque whose address was found in the Moroccans' apartment. The mosque was attended by the other group.

Press leaks and the discovery of the hole in a tunnel containing a water main led to a wave of panic and speculation that the terrorists were trying to contaminate the water supply of central-northern Rome. Though US State Department officials downplayed the risk to the embassy, Cavallo says that the Moroccans had the capacity to create poisonous substances. Along with the cyanide compound, police found a gunpowder substance that could have created the heat needed to release the cyanide gas, he says.

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