German judge authorizes arrest of Iraqi detained after Dortmund
blasts
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[April 14, 2017]
By Joseph Nasr
BERLIN (Reuters) - A German judge
authorized on Thursday the arrest of a 26-year-old Iraqi man
detained after an attack on a bus carrying players of a soccer team,
and prosecutors said they believed he was a member of Islamic State.
The Federal Prosecutor's Office said the man, identified as Abdul
Beset A., had joined Islamic State in Iraq by the end of 2014 at the
latest and had led a 10-man command unit there. The jihadist group
controls parts of Iraq and Syria.
"The task of his unit was to prepare abductions, kidnappings,
extortions and killings," the prosecutor's office said in a
statement.
The man traveled to Turkey in March 2015 and from there on to
Germany in early 2016.
"Also from Germany, the accused continued to maintain contacts with
members of 'IS'," it added, citing the grounds for the arrest.
Earlier, the prosecutor's office there was no evidence that the man
had taken part in the attack in the western city of Dortmund.
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Three explosions went off as the Borussia Dortmund bus traveled to
the club's stadium for their Champions League match against AS
Monaco on Tuesday, injuring Spanish defender Marc Bartra and
delaying the fixture by a day.
Security is an issue in campaigning for Germany's federal election
on Sept. 24, a tight battle in which Chancellor Angela Merkel is
seeking a fourth term. In December, a Tunisian man killed 12 people
when he ploughed a truck through a Berlin Christmas market.
Last year, Merkel lost support to the anti-immigration Alternative
for Germany (AfD) party after opening the country's doors to more
than a million migrants. The AfD has since seen its ratings fall
while the chancellor has regained some poise.
MILITARY DETONATORS
Bild newspaper said on Thursday that military detonators had been
used to set off the three explosive devices, probably remotely using
a mobile phone.
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![](../images/041417pics/sports53.jpg)
The Borussia Dortmund team bus is seen after an explosion near their
hotel before the game. Reuters / Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo
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Three identical letters printed in German found near the scene of
the attack in Dortmund suggested a possible Islamist motive for the
attack.
One of the letters, published by Bild, starts with the Islamic
phrase "In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful"
and demands the withdrawal of German Tornado surveillance planes
from Syria and the closure of the U.S. military air base in
Ramstein, Germany.
"As of now, all infidel actors, singers, athletes and all prominent
personalities in Germany and other crusader nations are on a death
list of the Islamic State," the letter said.
Bild said prosecutors were also investigating two additional
suspects in the attack, one a neo-Nazi sympathizer and another from
a radical leftist group.
(Additional reporting by Rene Wagner and Paul Carrel; Editing by
John Stonestreet and Gareth Jones) [© 2017 Thomson Reuters. All
rights reserved.]
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