Raiding over 1,100 homes to arrest just 4 men suggest that a very urgent but vague tip was received...
Posted on 12/11/2003 10:39:46 PM PST by Pokey78
COLOGNE. A coordinated series of police raids described as possibly the biggest in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany took place on Thursday morning, when investigators in 13 states entered an estimated 1,170 homes, businesses and other premises belonging to suspected members of a banned radical Islamist organization.
But the only four reported arrests were of four men living in the Lower Saxony cities of Braunschweig and Peine: Local prosecutors said the four had not been charged but were suspected of planning attacks “on unknown targets.“
Most of the raids took place in North Rhine-Westphalia.
The German Interior Ministry said they focused on finding evidence that Metin Kaplan, the leader of the Caliphate State organization banned in December 2001 as a potentially violent “threat to the constitutional order“ under strict post-Sept. 11 security laws, has been attempting to resurrect the group by using a radical newspaper as a cover for its activities and a means of keeping track of members.
Among the homes searched was the Cologne apartment of Kaplan, the self-declared “Caliph of Cologne,“ who was released from prison in March for inciting the murder of a rival Islamist leader in Germany.
German courts have blocked efforts to deport him to face treason charges in his native Turkey, saying he faced possible torture there.
Raiding over 1,100 homes to arrest just 4 men suggest that a very urgent but vague tip was received...
Glad my kin left there when they did.
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