German police have detained a young man after finding chemicals used for making explosives in his apartment. The suspect admitted that he planned a bomb attack on police officers or soldiers, prosecutors and police said in a joint statement.
A German citizen, 26, whose name has not been revealed yet, was detained on Wednesday in the German town of Northeim, in the northwestern state of Lower Saxony. He is suspected of preparing to commit a “grave violent offense against the state” and of attempted murder, the statement issued by the regional police department in Goettingen and the regional Prosecutor General’s Office in Celle says.
Earlier, police raided his home and found various chemicals used to make explosives based on acetone peroxide – a highly explosive agent, which is difficult to detect and which was earlier used in a number of terrorist attacks across Europe, including the Brussels attacks in 2016.
The police officers also discovered “components that could be used for assembling an unconventional explosive device,” the statement said, adding that the details found in the suspects apartment particularly included “electrical components of a time fuse.”
According to the investigators, the suspect was actively preparing for a terrorist attack when he was captured. They also managed to find out that he was a member of a Salafist group – an ultra-conservative Islamist movement.