Search for weapons depots: Federal prosecutors indict suspected Hamas members

The federal prosecutor’s office has filed charges against four suspected members of Hamas. This was announced by Germany’s highest prosecutor’s office in Karlsruhe. The men arrested in Berlin and the Netherlands are accused of membership in a foreign terrorist organization. The State Security Senate at the Berlin Court of Appeal must now decide whether to schedule a trial.

The men had been working as foreign operators for the terrorist organization Hamas for years and “occupied important positions within the organization with direct ties to leaders of the military wing,” according to the federal prosecutor’s statement. Among other things, they are said to have searched for the association’s weapons depots.

Search for weapons cache in Poland

According to the information, Hamas had long ago set up earth depots with weapons in various European countries in order to keep them ready for possible attacks against Jewish institutions in Europe. “The association considered the Israeli embassy in Berlin, the US Air Base in Ramstein or the area around Tempelhof Airport in Berlin as possible attack targets,” it said.

According to the report, one of the men set up a depot with ammunition and firearms in Bulgaria in spring 2019. In the summer of 2019, he cleared out a weapons cache in Denmark and brought a pistol from it to Germany. He traveled to Bulgaria again in August 2023 to check the depot. “Between June and December 2023, all of the accused, in varying positions, set out from Berlin several times to search for a weapons cache in Poland. Ultimately, it was not possible to locate it,” said the authority.

Last December, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office had three of the men arrested in Berlin and one in Rotterdam, Netherlands. They are in custody.