German police said Wednesday they had foiled a biological attack with last week's arrest of a Tunisian suspected jihadist in possession of the deadly poison ricin and bomb-making material. "Very concrete preparations had been made for an act with a ... biological bomb, which is a first for Germany," said Holger Muench, head of the BKA Federal Criminal Police Office.
German police commandos on June 12 stormed the Cologne apartment of the 29-year-old Tunisian identified only as Sief Allah H. and discovered "toxic substances" that turned out to be ricin. Produced by processing castor beans, ricin is lethal in minute doses if swallowed, inhaled or injected and 6,000 times more potent than cyanide, with no known antidote.
Muench said, speaking to German public radio, that "we became aware of this person a few months ago, and then evidence emerged pointing to links to the so-called Islamic State". The Tunisian man, who has been charged with possession of weapons of war and planning a serious act of violence against the state, was thought to have followed instructions on making a ricin bomb disseminated online by the IS.
"There are instructions on how to do this, including by Islamist organisations, on the internet, and this person was obviously guided by that," Muench said. Prosecutors have said he was "strongly suspected of intentionally manufacturing biological weapons" - but they reiterated Wednesday they still lacked concrete indications or details of an attack plan.
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