BERLIN: German authorities said Sunday that they have arrested a Libyan national with suspected ties to the extremist group Islamic State who was allegedly planning a firearms attack on the Israeli Embassy.
Police and other security forces detained the man on Saturday evening in Bernau, a town just outside of Berlin, and searched his home there, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.
The prosecutor’s office said the suspect was a Libyan national whom they identified only as Omar A.
“He intended to carry out a high-profile attack with firearms on the Israeli Embassy in Berlin,” the statement said. In his planning, the statement added, “the accused exchanged information with a member of IS in a messenger chat.”
Security forces also searched the home of another person who is considered a witness and not a suspect, the prosecutor’s statement said.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said that German security authorities “struck in time to thwart possible plans to attack the Israeli Embassy in Berlin.”
“This shows that protecting Jewish and Israeli institutions in our country is vital and of the utmost importance to us,” she added.
The suspect was expected to be brought before an investigating judge at the country’s highest court, the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, on Sunday, the prosecutor’s office said.
Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor thanked the German security authorities “for ensuring the security of our embassy,” dpa reported.
News of the case first came from the Bild newspaper, which reported that a heavily armed elite police unit stormed the suspect’s home in Bernau. It said German authorities acted after receiving a tipoff from an unspecified foreign intelligence agency.
“We are acting with the utmost vigilance and attention in view of the high threat posed by Islamist, antisemitic and anti-Israel violence,” Faeser said.
German authorities arrest Libyan man suspected of planning attack on Israeli Embassy
https://arab.news/p2hqs
German authorities arrest Libyan man suspected of planning attack on Israeli Embassy
- The man was detained on Saturday in Bernau, a town just outside of Berlin
- Israeli Embassy in Berlin confirmed to dpa that there had been a plan to attack the diplomatic mission.
UN says Myanmar junta using ‘brutal violence’ to force people to vote
- International monitors have dismissed the phased month-long vote as a rebranding of martial rule
- Turk warned Tuesday that civilians were being threatened by both the military authorities and armed opposition groups over their participation in the polls
GENEVA: The UN said on Tuesday Myanmar’s junta was using violence and intimidation to force people to vote in upcoming military-controlled elections, while armed opposition groups were using similar tactics to keep people away.
“The military authorities in Myanmar must stop using brutal violence to compel people to vote and stop arresting people for expressing any dissenting views,” United Nations rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.
Myanmar’s junta is set to preside over voting starting Sunday, touting heavily restricted polls as a return to democracy five years after it ousted the last elected government, triggering civil war.
But former civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains jailed and her hugely popular party dissolved after soldiers ended the nation’s decade-long democratic experiment in February 2021.
International monitors have dismissed the phased month-long vote as a rebranding of martial rule.
Turk, who last month told AFP that holding elections in Myanmar under the current circumstances was “unfathomable,” warned Tuesday that civilians were being threatened by both the military authorities and armed opposition groups over their participation in the polls.
His statement highlighted the dozens of individuals who have reportedly been detained under an “election protection law” for exercising their freedom of expression.
Many had been slapped with “extremely harsh sentences,” the statement said, pointing to three youths in Hlainghaya Township in the Yangon region who were sentenced to between 42 and 49 years behind bars for hanging up anti-election posters.
The UN rights office said it had also received reports from displaced people in several parts of the country, including the Mandalay region, who had been warned they would be attacked or their homes seized if they did not return to vote.
“Forcing displaced people to undertake unsafe and involuntary returns is a human rights violation,” Turk stressed.
He said that people were also facing “serious threats” from armed groups opposing the military, including nine women teachers from Kyaikto who were reportedly abducted last month while traveling to attend a training on the ballot.
They were then “released with warnings from the perpetrators,” the statement said.
It also pointed to how the self-declared Yangon Army bombed administration offices in Hlegu and North Okkalapa townships in the Yangon region, injuring several election staff, and had vowed to “keep attacking election organizers.”
“These elections are clearly taking place in an environment of violence and repression,” Turk said.
“There are no conditions for the exercise of the rights of freedom of expression, association or peaceful assembly that allow for the free and meaningful participation of the people.”
