German authorities have confirmed that the first planned biological terror attack in the country has been foiled by the police with a 29-year old Tunisian having been arrested for the plot, German daily Handelsblatt has reported.
Talking to a public broadcaster, Holger Münch, president of Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office said, “There were very concrete preparations for such an act using, if you will, a biological bomb. This is a first in Germany.”
The Tunisian, Sief Allah H, was following instructions released by Islamist groups on the Internet to make biological weapons from the toxin ricin as told by Münch. He had reportedly begun producing ricin from castor seeds following directions on the Internet.
Ricin is far deadlier than cyanide, with just a few milligrams enough to kill a person if injected, swallowed or even inhaled.
Seif Allah was arrested a week earlier after the German authorities received intelligence inputs from a foreign partner regarding the order of 3,000 castor seeds. He came to Germany in 2016 and is a father to four with a wife who converted to Islam, and reportedly held sympathies for the Islamic State.
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