Federal Prosecutor’s Office: German Jews in sight? Presumed Iran spy

On behalf of an Iranian secret service, a Dane in Berlin is said to have spotted Jewish people and institutions as well as objects with reference to Israel. According to the federal prosecutor, attacks may also be prepared in this way. The top German law enforcement officers had the 53-year-old man, who has Afghan roots, arrested in Aarhus in Danish last week.

At the beginning of the year, the man received an order from an Iranian secret service to collect information about Jewish places and certain Jewish people in Berlin, the federal prosecutor said. In June he spied out three objects in the capital. At that time, however, the security authorities already had it on the radar.

Iran’s ambassador in the Federal Foreign Office

The so-called al-Kuds brigades are said to have placed the order-the abroad of the influential revolutionary guards, Iran’s elite riding power. Her tasks include hidden secret service operations abroad. According to information from the “mirror”, the accused is said to have taken photos of the seat of the German-Israeli Society.

Iran decisively rejected the counterparts. The Iranian embassy in Berlin spoke of “unfounded and dangerous claims”, as the government -related news agency ISNA reported. The allegations are part of a campaign to distract from Israel’s war against Iran. From the German Ministry of Foreign Again, it was said that the Iranian ambassador had been reordered in the Federal Foreign Office.

Transfer to Germany planned

The Danish domestic intelligence service PET confirmed the arrest of a 53-year-old in the Aarhus area. He also warned that Iran repeatedly uses criminal networks, middlemen and individuals to prepare or commit attacks in Europe. It was well known that Iran carried out secret service activities against critics of Iranian leadership in other European countries, also in Denmark. Over the past few years, Tehran has increasingly focused on other destinations in Europe, such as against Israeli or Jewish goals.

The accused is now to be transferred to Germany and in Karlsruhe to the investigative judge of the Federal Court of Justice, who decides on the custody. According to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, the procedure is based on the findings of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The Federal Criminal Police Office conducts the police investigations.

Protection for Jewish facilities is already reinforced

Israel had attacked Iran on June 13 and bombed goals nationwide. As a reason, the government led the threat of Iran’s controversial nuclear program – Israel feared that the Islamic Republic could build an atomic bomb. Iran denies this and reacted with rocket and drone attacks. In the meantime, a ceasefire applies.

After the beginning of the Israeli attack, the interior ministries of the federal and state governments had reinforced the measures to protect Israeli and Jewish institutions. “If this suspicion is confirmed, we are dealing with an outrageous process,” said Federal Minister of Justice Stefanie Hubig (SPD). “We have the responsibility of supporting our Jewish fellow citizens – against threats from inside and outside.”

The President of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, said: “This successful defense must be a last signal to all those who still talk the hatred and fantasies of the Mullah regime against Israel and Jews all over the world”. The federal government must “actively take action against the Iranian regime – a different consequence for this presumably planned terrorist attack cannot exist.”

Investigations into other attack plans

It is not the first time that the federal prosecutor intervenes on Jewish and Israeli institutions due to presumably planned attacks. In October, the authority in Bernau near Berlin had a Libyer arrested who, according to the knowledge at that time, wanted to attack the Israeli embassy. Three months later, however, he was released from pre -trial detention because the urgent suspicion could not be maintained.

In February, a Russian was then caught at Berlin-Brandenburg Airport, which according to DPA information was also also planning an attack on the Israeli embassy. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office later took over the case from the Brandenburg General Prosecutor’s Office. It accuses the suspect, among other things, the support of the terrorist militia Islamic State (IS).

In addition, the Supreme German Administration is investigating a attack at the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. A Syrian man is said to have stabbed a Spanish tourist there in February and injured him life -threatening. The federal prosecutor accuses him of “acted out of a radical-Islamist and anti-Semitic conviction”.