Federal Prosecutor General: This year, terrorist investigations against over 100 Islamists

Of the 100 defendants in the Federal Prosecutor General’s recent investigation into Islamist terrorism, one in five has a German passport. This emerges from an answer from the Federal Ministry of Justice to a question from Union MP Michael Breilmann (CDU), which was published by the Bundestag. Of the 20 German defendants in proceedings initiated between the beginning of January and the end of September, 11 are said to have another nationality.

In October, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office also arrested three suspected IS supporters: an Iranian, a German and a Libyan, according to the latest communications from the Federal Prosecutor’s Office.

According to the government’s response, with 35 suspects, Syrians make up the largest group among the accused in the 97 proceedings initiated by the Federal Prosecutor General in the first nine months with reference to Islamist terrorism. Justice State Secretary Benjamin Strasser (FDP) said 24 of the accused suspected Islamists were citizens of Afghanistan. German citizens made up the third largest group.

According to the ministry, four defendants each are citizens of Russia, Turkey and Iraq, although the four accused Turkish citizens also have German citizenship.

According to the information, the proceedings against suspected extremists mainly concern crimes that were committed abroad and are related to the Taliban or the so-called Islamic State (IS). The majority of the cases that were not discontinued were passed on from Karlsruhe to the state public prosecutor’s offices because they were of minor importance. Proceedings were discontinued due to a lack of evidence of the crime or for reasons that resulted in a waiver of prosecution for crimes committed abroad.

At least twelve completed Islamist terrorist attacks since September 2015

Since September 4, 2015, there have been twelve events in Germany that the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) classifies as completed Islamist attacks, as the Federal Ministry of the Interior announced in response to a question from AfD MP Matthias Moosdorf. Moosdorf had chosen this deadline. On the night of September 4th to 5th, 2015, then Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) decided not to close the borders despite the sharp increase in migration pressure.

Seven of these twelve attacks resulted in fatalities. However, the ministry points out that a final classification of an attack as Islamist-motivated is only possible once all relevant information is available. Therefore, no information can yet be provided on individual matters that are still the subject of investigations by the law enforcement authorities.

In the first three quarters of this year, according to information from the Federal Ministry of Justice, the Federal Prosecutor General also initiated investigations against 18 suspected right-wing extremists and seven proceedings relating to left-wing extremism against 27 accused. The 84 cases of so-called foreign-related extremism against 83 accused and unknown persons were mainly directed against Turkish citizens as well as Syrians, Iraqis and Germans. The German security authorities include the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) and the right-wing extremist Turkish “Ülkücü” movement among the groups of “foreign-related extremism”. The statistics do not include undercover investigations.