Four detained after threat to German synagogue on Yom Kippur

Hagen, Germany (dpa) – Investigators in western Germany say they have not discovered any bomb components during searches in connection with a suspected planned attack on the synagogue in Hagen.

Four suspects were detained after what authorities described as an extremist threat to attack a synagogue in the western city of Hagen.

Electronic devices such as mobile phones and storage media have been seized and must now be evaluated, a spokesperson for the Dusseldorf public prosecutor’s office said on Thursday.

A 16-year-old boy with a Syrian passport was among those initially arrested. Authorities are investigating allegations of preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state.

It is still unclear whether the 16-year-old suspect will be formally arrested. He is still being questioned by detectives. The three other people who were detained are his father and brothers. They were not arrested as suspects, but under police law, the spokesperson said. They were also to be questioned.

State Interior Minister Herbert Reul talked about evidence of “a Islamist-motivated threat.”

Reul said earlier that “there was the risk of an attack on the synagogue in Hagen “which was “likely prevented” by police.

The apparent threat on Wednesday evening came on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for Jews, and led to the cordoning off of the areas around the synagogue and the cancellation of services there.

Searches for more evidence, including at the main suspect’s residence, were under way. Terrorism authorities are also involved in the investigation, prosecutors in Dusseldorf said.

The state premier of North Rhine Westphalia and candidate for chancellor in elections later this month, Armin Laschet, said that anyone planning a terrorist attack should be expelled from Germany.

“Whoever wants to integrate here, should integrate, should learn German, get a job – they can stay. But anyone who is planning a terrorist attack must be expelled from the country,” he said during a campaign event in Lower Saxony.

“We are now uncovering how serious this attack was,” Laschet said, linking the incident with an anti-Semitic attack on a synagogue in Halle in the state of Saxony-Anhalt in 2019. All extremists should be fought against, he said.

One of his rivals for the chancellorship, SPD candidate Olaf Scholz, wrote on Twitter: “It hurts that Jews in Hagen are exposed to such a threatening situation and cannot celebrate Yom Kippur together. It is our duty to do everything to protect them and to intervene immediately in case of danger.”

Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, thanked the police, among others.

“We thank the security authorities who apparently prevented an attack on the synagogue in Hagen. The incident brings back bad memories of the attack in Halle on Yom Kippur two years ago,” he said in a statement.

“The fact that our community was again so endangered on the holiest holiday leaves us deeply concerned and shows that the increase of security measures at many Jewish institutions was and is necessary,” Schuster added.

The former president of the council, Charlotte Knobloch, said the alleged attempted attack shows once again “that Jewish life without fear is still not possible in Germany, despite all the good words.” Without police protection, she said, it remains unthinkable.

Germany’s Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs Ditib has condemned the alleged plans to attack a synagogue in Hagen.

“An attack on a synagogue is an attack on a place of worship, and thus an attack on the whole of society,” Ditib’s chairman, Kazim Turkmen, said in Cologne on Thursday.

He said that such an attack – whether threatened, planned or carried out – is always an act of violence that affects more than just members of the respective religious community.

“We want to convey our solidarity and sympathy to our Jewish brothers and sisters in faith,” he said.

The large police operation in Hagen on Wednesday evening followed a tip-off from a foreign intelligence agency on suspicions that someone was planning to carry out an attack, security sources told dpa.

On Yom Kippur two years ago, an armed right-wing extremist in Halle tried to force his way into a synagogue there. When the door held, he shot dead two people nearby and injured two others as he fled.

The 28-year-old man who confessed to carrying out the Halle attack was convicted last year and given a life sentence by a German court.

During the trial, the accused expressed anti-Semitic and racist views and outlined an anti-feminist conspiracy theory.