Suspect Held Over String Of Attacks On German Power Grid

Police in western Germany arrested a 48-year-old man on Tuesday suspected of carrying out a series of attacks on the electricity grid across three German states, ending a manhunt that had lasted several days. The suspect, identified only as Daniel V. in line with German privacy rules, was detained near the Weisweiler power plant close to Aachen.

According to information from the German press agency dpa, officers first noticed the man during a routine traffic check in the area around the power station. He reportedly attempted to flee on foot before being caught. Police said he did not resist arrest. The tabloid Bild reported that V. was carrying additional explosive material at the time he was taken into custody.

Cologne police said the items found on the suspect were being examined by a bomb disposal expert from the North Rhine-Westphalia State Criminal Police Office. Officers also discovered a tent hidden in nearby undergrowth that had been fitted with further explosive charges, according to the police statement.

Investigators had already found another letter claiming responsibility for the attacks near the Weisweiler plant. Police said the letter was discovered on Monday, together with several launching devices attached to a high-voltage power line close to the facility. According to dpa, the construction of these devices closely resembled equipment previously found at multiple sensitive energy infrastructure sites in North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg and Saxony.

Investigators noted that the area around Weisweiler had already been searched thoroughly the previous week. They did not clarify, when asked, whether the newly discovered launching devices and the letter had been overlooked during that earlier search or whether the suspect had installed them more recently.

Authorities believe the man tried, at several locations across the three states, to fire homemade rockets carrying thin wires over high-voltage power lines in order to trigger short circuits. In at least two instances, investigators say the attempts succeeded.

In Bergheim, west of Cologne, several units of a power plant were knocked offline for several days as a result of one such incident. In Brandenburg, two short circuits occurred at the Turnow-Preilack substation near the Jänschwalde power plant. More than 20 homemade rockets are believed to have been used there to fire conductive material onto the high-voltage lines. Neither incident resulted in a power outage, according to police.

Brandenburg's interior minister, Jan Redmann of the Christian Democratic Union, announced wide-ranging consequences following the arrest. He described the suspect as a "misguided lone actor."

"It takes more than one troublemaker to plunge Germany into chaos," Redmann said in a statement. He added a note of caution, saying, "But we also need to be clear that a misguided lone actor is only one of many threat scenarios we must be prepared to guard against."

The investigation into the string of attacks remains ongoing, with authorities continuing to examine the explosive materials recovered near Weisweiler and to determine the full extent of the suspect's activity across the affected states.