Germans had hints of suspected plot

AP via Nando Times ^ | September 8, 2002 | TONY CZUCZKA

[grimalkin]

BERLIN (September 8, 2002 4:01 p.m. EDT) - German authorities had suspicions nearly two months ago about a Turkish man suspected of plotting to bomb U.S. military bases in Germany, but bureaucratic procedures delayed his arrest until last week, a prosecutor said Sunday.

A tip from U.S. security officials that a witness reported the suspect had chemicals at home reached German prosecutors in mid-July, but a judge put off questioning of the woman, scheduled for Aug. 13, because the summons could not be delivered on time, said Elke O'Donoghue, a prosecutor in the city of Stuttgart.

When the witness was interviewed later, she said suspect Osman Petmezci "was planning something very soon," O'Donoghue told The Associated Press. Prosecutors got a search warrant Aug. 30 - six days before Petmezci, 24, and his American fiancee, Astrid Eyzaguirre, 23, were arrested Thursday near Heidelberg, home to U.S. Army Europe headquarters in southwestern Germany.

German authorities so far believe the couple was acting alone, despite citing evidence they admired Osama bin Laden and shared some of his convictions, including a hatred of Jews. Federal prosecutors, who likely would take over the investigation from Baden-Wuerttemberg state authorities if a terror link was discovered, were still reviewing the evidence Sunday.

Baden-Wuerttemberg state investigators and Heidelberg prosecutors said Sunday they were focusing on whether the couple acted alone or as part of a group. Federal investigators and U.S. security officials were supporting the probe, they said Sunday.

O'Donoghue's account was the most detailed yet of events leading to the arrests in the couple's shared apartment in Walldorf, six miles south of Heidelberg.

Inside the couple's third-floor apartment, police found 287 pounds of bomb-making chemicals - which investigators said Sunday could have been used to make about 44 pounds of gunpowder - along with five pipe bombs, a book about bomb-making and electronic parts apparently intended as detonators.

Police also found a picture of Osama bin Laden and computer diskettes, which were being reviewed.

Technical experts were assembling the bomb-making materials to determine how much damage the devices would have caused, investigators said Sunday.

Germany's top security official said there was no evidence al-Qaida members are in Europe to carry out attacks on the anniversary of Sept. 11.

"Certainly we have to determine in the course of the investigation if the arrested man had links to other people or is part of a group," Interior Minister Otto Schily told Germany's most-read Sunday newspaper, Bild am Sonntag.

The German weekly Der Spiegel reported over the weekend that a friend of Eyzaguirre's told U.S. military police Eyzaguirre warned her to stay away from the military shopping area for the next few days.

Eyzaguirre worked at the base store, known as a PX, and had access to many facilities at Campbell Barracks, which also contains the Army's 5th Corps headquarters and a NATO facility.

Petmezci is believed to have stolen the bomb-making materials at a chemical warehouse where he worked, Schily said. State authorities said he had previous convictions for theft and drug offenses.

Petmezci's father, Mehmet, told Bild am Sonntag, "I cannot imagine my son being a terrorist."

But the paper said he recalled how his son liked to play with fireworks.

"Already as a boy, he made his own New Year's firecrackers. He loved it when things went bang," the father was quoted as saying.

Walldorf is a town of 14,000 with a large American military community, a Turkish mosque and an Islamic center run by Milli Gorus, a group that has been under observation by German intelligence officials. One neighbor, Juergen Meyer, recalled that Petmezci openly disdained Jews, though he said he believed it was "all nonsense."

There apparently were other signs. An unidentified neighbor told the Sunday newspaper Welt am Sonntag that a few drops of a chemical spattered onto his head from Petmezci's balcony two months ago, sending him screaming with pain into the stairwell. Petmezci apologized, saying he was using paint thinner to remodel the apartment, the paper said.

Officials had no comment Sunday on a German television report that investigators were exploring possible links between the male suspect and an Islamic center in Heidelberg investigated for allegedly helping finance the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.

[eabinga]

and his American fiancee, Astrid Eyzaguirre, 23, were arrested

Yes, that is a classic american name, isn't it...

[Maximum Leader]

If I had to guess, probably German mother and GI father. Has the citzenship because of dad but who knows if she's even been to America.